Title: Riposte
Author: kenzimone
Disclaimer: Don't own
Fandom: Heroes
Characters: Claire
Rating: R
Summary: In some extraordinary cases, the truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
Note: My try at a possible resolution of episode 118 – Parasite.
Somewhere between everyday life and tedium there is a fine line of something different. Be it excitement, fear, lies, or truth. Claire's fine line is truth, she decides. A lack of truth, the search for truth, the moment when truth opened the door to Peter Petrelli's apartment and greeted her by her first name.
In some extraordinary cases, the truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
...
Her grandmother offers to make them tea. Claire watches as she mills around her son's small kitchen, opening cupboards and pushing aside pans; she's dressed in a fine dress suit, and her nails are meticulously cut, filed and painted. This is a woman used to telling people what to do, not someone who gets things done on her own.
At the other end of the small couch in Peter's two room apartment, the Haitian is watching Claire with an unreadable look. He doesn't flinch at Mrs. Petrelli's sudden shout or the sounds of stainless steel pans hitting the floor not soon thereafter.
"Tea's off. I'm so sorry," Mrs. Petrelli says, abandoning the kitchen and taking a seat in the armchair opposite the couch. "Peter's a bit of a slob. Doesn't keep anything where you'd expect it to be."
Claire might disagree, going by the tidy little apartment that looks like it hasn't been lived in at all lately, but she figures her grandmother to also be the kind of woman used to getting her own way, and keeps quiet.
"So, um, my dad?" She dares to venture.
"Yes. Nathan, my eldest son." Mrs. Petrelli crosses her legs and looks oddly regal in the worn and obviously badly loved armchair.
Claire remembers street lengths of posters on her way to the apartment. Vote Petrelli. She thinks that yes, yes, the man that had been smiling back at her from them could very well be the owner of the back of the head she'd seen down in Texas. He could.
He looks young to be her father. Then again, from what she remembers of Peter, he looks too young to be her uncle.
Mrs. Petrelli has obviously embraced the right to be tight lipped, and Claire can feel dark eyes running her over from head to toe. There might be a sparkle of warmth somewhere in there, but it's not like Claire had thought this moment would be. Not like she'd hoped.
She remembers her father – her daddy, the one she left behind, bleeding out on a bridge – and the look he gave her right before the gun sounded and she closed her eyes. She misses it. She misses him.
She opens her mouth, a question not on her tongue but rather a plea – tell me about Nathan; take me to him; please don't make me leave.
And that's when the apartment door is kicked in.
...
When Claire looks back, she can't tell who was most startled. The Haitian is standing steadily, feet apart, the gun used to shoot her dad pointed towards the door. Mrs. Petrelli is also on her feet, hand grasping the back of the armchair like she is daring anyone to try and take her someplace else. Claire is not grabbing onto anything; Claire simply wants to run.
The door swings on its hinges, once, twice, before it stops. The doorway is empty.
In the corner of her eye, Claire sees the Haitian relax his stance as he slowly lowers the gun. It is only Mrs. Petrelli's shocked voice, her tongue slipping into the language that she had spoken to him in before, that makes him raise it once again;
"Qu'est-ce que c'est?"
Claire follows her grandmother's gaze to the floor by the door's threshold. A large puddle is forming there, thick, red liquid dripping onto the linoleum floor and spreading into the room. She licks her lips, feeling her heart thud in her chest: blood.
The air begins to shift, like it's dancing on the horizon on a hot day, and then the space in the doorway fills, and above the growing blood puddle there are two men.
The first looks old and weary, his beard flecked by the least of white; his eyes are wide and his chest is heaving, and the front of his shirt is covered in blood. Slung across his shoulder is the arm of the second man, whose legs are failing beneath him and whose dark hair is wet and plastered to his scalp, dripping heavily onto the floor.
The Haitian seems to recognize the first man, because he lowers his gun and utters one word: "Claude."
Mrs. Petrelli has the second one covered;
"Oh my God, Peter!"
...
Claire helps Mrs. Petrelli drag the coffee table out of the way as the Haitian assists the man named Claude in carrying Peter into the living room and lowering him down onto the couch. Mrs. Petrelli utters a small moan of pain and falls to her knees by her son's side, carefully brushing his bangs off his forehead and tries to assess the damage.
Claude wipes his hands on his pants and stands up straight, free of the extra, added weight of his burden. "He'll be fine. Flesh wound, at most. Lots o' blood, but nothing serious."
Mrs. Petrelli doesn't seem to be listening, still cooing softly to Peter and cupping his face in her hand.
Claude rolls his shoulders. "Right-o. We need to go back."
"Why?" The Haitian is suspicious, as if he knows something about this man that Claire doesn't.
"'Cause there's another one back there, that's why." Claude is already out the door. The Haitian hesitates for a brief moment before following.
Claire watches as Peter's eyelids flutter and the deep cut in his forehead starts to close itself, and then she grabs her jacket off the floor and hurries out the front door.
...
The apartment building Claude leads them to is not in the best of neighborhoods. Claire stays close behind the Haitian as they climb the ratty stairs, following Claude blindly until he exits the stairwell on the sixth floor.
"Room 613," he tells them. "Had to follow the pup here, or I knew he'd get 'imself into trouble. Lot o' people've been dyin'."
The door to the apartment is fully open, and inside it is dark. Claire follows the two men's lead and steps over the IV lying discarded on the floor by the door's threshold; the apartment is in shambles. Then she looks up.
There are dark smears on the ceiling, like someone was dragged across it like a wet rag. Whatever it is has not yet dried, and Claire blinks wildly as a drop surrenders to gravity and falls, hitting her on the forehead. She smells blood, and feels vaguely nauseated.
"I thought you said one more," the Haitian says, and Claire wipes the blood off her face and looks down towards Claude's feet, where she can dimly see the outlines of two bodies in the lacking light.
"One for you to take," Claude says, grabbing one of the bodies by the the collar of its shirt and pulling it upwards in a sitting position. The man's – for it is a man – head lolls to the side, and Claire's stomach lurches and there's a flash before her eyes as she sees and smells and hears the bone of Jackie's skull snap and splinter.
The Haitian, too, stills.
"Ah, you know 'im, then." Claude sounds smug, if possible, given the present situation. "This one's mine. You can have the good ol' doctor." He nods to the side, towards the lump of a human being still lying lifeless on the floor.
The Haitian pulls his gun out of the back of his pants, aims it at Claude's chest. "We can't let you take him."
"Oh? And what are you goin' to do with 'im? Running as ya' are, and all." Claude's right eyebrow rises up towards his hairline. "I'm takin' 'im, and it'll be the last you see of either of us."
It's not quite a promise, but the Haitian seems to relax his grip on the weapon and then slowly lowers it. He nods once.
Claude grins. "Well, then. Give my regards to the pup, and tell 'im not to come bothering me again." And then both he and the unconscious body of the murderer of Claire's cheerleading squad co-captain, disappear into thin air.
...
The 'doctor', as Claude had referred to him as, is a dark skinned man in his early thirties, face painted shock red. He displays no signs of life as the Haitian turns him over on his back, but after checking for a pulse the Haitian nods to Claire that he is, in fact, still alive.
Together, they ease him up off the floor and Claire lets the Haitian take most of the man's weight as they position him inbetween each other. The doctor coughs, his body reflexively trying to keep any blood from slipping into his lungs, and thick liquid drips heavily onto the floor.
Claire blinks away the tears in her eyes and tries not to stumble on the broken furniture as they make their way out of the apartment.
...
Peter is sitting up on the couch when they make it back, his mother's shaking hands petting his brow. He rises when they come in through the door, gently pushing Claire out of the way and helping the Haitian bear the doctor's weight. Claire is left behind, looking at her blood stained hands and feeling week in the knees.
Peter and the Haitian carefully position the dark skinned man on the couch, Peter telling his mother to get some towels.
The Haitian takes his eyes off the doctor, eyes straying to Peter's hairline. "You're alright."
Peter's gaze meets Claire's, and he smiles faintly. "Yeah."
Mrs. Petrelli returns, carrying as many towels as she could find in the apartment's bathroom cupboard. It jolts Claire back into action, and she closes the apartment door and helps her grandmother lay the towels down onto the coffee table. Grabbing a handful, she heads to the kitchen to wet them in the sink.
"Tell me what happened," the Haitian says, pulling apart the top buttons of the doctor's shirt as Peter brushes thick and dark curls off the man's forehead to check for cuts.
"I interrupted Mohinder and Sylar," Peter explains, moving out of the way as Claire returns with the wet towels and hands one to her grandmother. Mrs. Petrelli hesitates slightly, not sure what to do, and Claire shoulders past her to dab at the doctor's forehead, carefully checking for the source of the bleeding.
"Mohinder was up on the roof, and he tried to warn me, but I didn't understand in time." Peter allows his mother to push him down onto the armchair and take a towel to his face to remove the dried blood. "Sylar used his powers to trap me against the wall, and then he started to... to cut my head open." Claire can feel the look he's giving her by the way the hairs on the back of her neck rise, and can hear the unsaid 'just like he did to that cheerleader'.
"And then?" The Haitian is watching Claire gently prod the dark skinned man's – Mohinder's – forehead, rubbing the towel against his skin.
"And then Sylar just drops." Peter frowns. "As in, eyes roll back in his head, and he drops."
"Your friend Claude followed you," the Haitian supplies, and Peter looks surprised. "He probably struck Sylar over the head with whatever was nearby."
Peter still looks doubtful, but the Haitian turns towards Claire instead.
"I think he's fine," she replies to the unspoken question. "There's a cut, but I can't see any bone. That... That man didn't have time to hurt him too much."
Peter makes an effort to get out of the chair, but his mother pushes him back. "He was bleeding from the mouth when I found him. His lungs..."
The Haitian frowns and leans forward, placing a hand on Mohinder's chest and for a moment there is silence as he listens intently to man's breathing. "No," he finally says, leaning back again. "I do not think there is any danger. Most likely, the reason he's bleeding from the mouth is because he bit his tongue during the attack."
Claire carefully wipes the side of his neck clean, as Mrs. Petrelli finally stills. "So he is going to be fine as well?"
"Yes," the Haitian replies. "He will recover."
...
Two hours pass, but Mohinder does not wake. Claire takes up a vigil on the floor by the couch, flipping through old photo albums that Mrs. Petrelli after some hesitation decided to present to her.
Peter grows groggy, saying something about it having to do with using the healing power he absorbed from her, and upon his mother's insistence he heads to bed for a moment of sleep; the Haitian heads back to Mohinder's apartment to make sure no one stumbles across the mess they left it in.
Mrs. Petrelli has taken a seat in the armchair by the couch and watches Claire flip through the album, now and then interrupting to point something out in one of the pictures or to tell her granddaughter the names of those depicted.
It is past seven o'clock when Mohinder stirs, curls shifting against the bright white bandage now adorning his head, and Claire lays the photo album on the coffee table and climbs to her knees, waiting. It takes a few moments and several attempts, but then Mohinder's eyes open fully and confused dark eyes take her in.
He tries to push himself up on his elbows, and Claire grabs a glass of water off the coffee table and guides it to his lips. He gratefully takes a sip and swallows, grimacing against the bitter taste of residual blood coating the inside of his mouth, before lying down again.
"I'm Claire," she says.
Mohinder blinks. "Save the cheerleader, save the world," he murmurs, slight smile pulling at the corners of his lips.
That's when Claire knows everything will be alright.