--Hers--
He knew he was being an ass. This Claire was used to her Peter being nothing but good to her. His terse and dismissive attitude had the poor girl beyond confused, and more than a little hurt.
He also knew it wasn't just him causing all that confusion and pain. Her eyes were haunted, to much like his Claire for his comfort. She was young, he knew, stuck between child and adult. But the scared little girl he had seen beneath the strong woman he knew, back in New York (how that seemed so long ago), seemed to have won out. The look she was giving him now was one he had seen before; that fateful Homecoming, that night at Kirby Plaza, a dozen times after that. But this Claire hadn't yet experienced the rest. And if he had his way, she never would.
He knew this look. She didn't want him. Not this stranger before her. She wanted the other Peter. She wanted her hero.
He swallowed hard, his heart heavy with regret, knowing he wasn't him. He wasn't her hero anymore. And he wasn't sure how much longer he could pretend to be. It didn't help how much he wanted to take her in his arms, hold her tight to let her know it would all be okay, that he would protect her from the rest of the world.
He remembered the way he had found her, standing nonchalantly in front of a speeding train. He remembered his heart in his throat, remembered his panic, his relief at the sight of a Claire yet untouched by his future.
It had been so long, so very long, since he had seen any kind of vulnerability in those green eyes, looking to him for both his help and his love.
Those beautiful eyes pleading with him just to care.
Instead, he pulled up the last vestiges of his resolve, gruffly refused her, and left her there.
He couldn't be the one she needed. But he knew who could.
--
Angela was right. He hated to even think those words, but as much as he hated to admit it, he knew it to be true. Claire was the one he cared for the most. Four years and countless dark turns in life hadn't changed that.
Coming together in his mind like the long-lost pieces of a jumbled jigsaw puzzle, he was starting to put together cause and effect.
He remembered the aftermath of Nathan's announcement to the world. There was the awe, the excitement and the wonder. Then there was the fear, the panic and the greed. Family and friends slipped away on all sides, betrayal covered their every step. It was only natural, that they could need someone to turn to.
It was at innocent at first. He supposed that was hypocritical to say, considering the way he had thought of her since the night he saved her, the way he had treated her in New York, hadn't been completely innocent. But he had never consciously meant to cross that line. What was meant to provide stability and comfort became passion and need. He went from being her family and her hero to being her lover, her everything. Where there was shame, there was also love that eased the stigma of what was happening between them.
And then they took her.
The changes had started after that. When he finally got her back, his mind was already half-buried in the underground movements against the government treatment of the "special". He was going to be a hero again. He just wasn't her hero.
He started leaving. His absences only cut deeper into her. He would come to her, seeking her bed and her embrace, gone the next morning and leaving cold sheets in his wake. He recalled her bitter accounts in his ear, as she tortured him in her revenge. He had used her body and abused her heart, leaving her feeling dirty instead of loved. He wasn't there in the mornings with his soft kisses and tender words, not there to chase away the insecurities and guilt of an incestuous taboo.
She never talked about what had happened after her capture. His imagination knew no bounds of what he could guess; his rage knew no limits of the revenge he desperately wanted to seek. He realized his grievous error know…so late he couldn't even be relieved that he eventually stumbled across his smaller answers. She was invulnerable. Indestructible. Immortal. But just because she could heal, didn't mean she couldn't be hurt.
She had never learned to defend herself. She couldn't fight off what was done to her. Her body could recover, but her mind and heart wouldn't. Because he wasn't there to save her. Because he had never taught her to save herself.
He would change that now.
Taking his present self from Jesse's body was as simple as it was putting him there in the first place. Wrapping a hand around the bewildered man's forearm and teleporting them both to Costa Verde was easy.
But leaving at the Butlers' doorstep and walking away…it was the hardest thing he ever had to do.
--
The second time that day, Claire came face-to-face with Peter Petrelli, but unlike the last time, it was cold distance that greeted her, but a warm, crooked smile and gentle arms beckoning her close to him.
And later that night, when she voiced once more her concerns for her and her family's safety, it was her Peter promising to teach her, to look after her.
It was her hero coming back to her.
--
Running into Angela at Level 5, he briefly closed his eyes, knowing that they were likely reuniting at this very moment. He sighed, squaring his shoulders and forcefully reminding himself why he was here instead of there.
He wasn't her hero anymore. He couldn't be the one she needed.
But no matter how he tried, it was impossible to forget that no matter what time he came from, Peter Petrelli would always belong to Claire Bennet, heart, body and soul.
He would always be hers.