It was late, and as she sat in the kitchen staring out the window into the dark night as she contemplated her means of escape. She knew it would upset her parents, all three or four of them, but that didn't matter she needed revenge. And if no one else could kill Sylar she sure as hell would. She couldn't feel anything, no hint of what had once been, what every human has. She couldn't feel the cool counter top beneath her fingers, nor feel the warmth that invaded the house, nor the hot tears that threatened to spill across her face in a rage…nothing but the emptiness.
"Don't hurt yourself, Claire," came Meredith's voice from the shadows of the living, approaching and illuminating her face in the light of the moon that filled the kitchen.
Claire glared at her mother's smirk, and began to get leave the room.
"Don't you have questions?" Meredith asked, her smirk evident even in her voice, and her eyes alight with the fires she possessed, "Come on, Claire don't you wonder… wonder about my powers, yours, your fathers?"
"What would you know?" Claire shot back, her voice laced with menace.
Smiling and taking the seat across from Claire, she smirked, "Much more than people would like me to know."
She'd caught Claire's attention, as she watched Claire readjust in her seat to watch her. Holding out her palms she began to shoot a fire ball back and forth, back and forth, illuminating the room and both their faces. Smiling, a slightly unfortunate smile, "You look a great deal like me…it's a pity you don't look more like your father…"
"I doubt the Petrelli's would want a little look-a-like running about, ruining political ambitions," Claire responded spitefully. And though she hadn't held it against them recently, as she had sat in the kitchen hating the world, and all that had happened, her anger had spread out like wave upon all those who had hurt her.
"My, my the ties that bind," she said still staring into her flame, and then tilting her head slightly and looking at Claire through the light of her fire, in a voice slightly unsure and hesitant, "I wanted to tell you something…away from your Mom, just you and me," looking up unsure and hesitant, "The money had been 100,000 dollars…and I shouldn't have taken it."
Claire's glare grew, "What do you mean…their hush money to keep me and you a secret, please, Mother!" Claire said outraged, whether more by the money or her mother she didn't know.
"I shouldn't have taken it, because they had no reason to silence me," staring up at Claire, she could tell she was about to speak, some witty or hurtful retort, but she couldn't hear it, she needed to free herself of these burdens, and perhaps tear down some of her daughters'. "Before you go walking away, to hate me, or whatever, would you listen…listen just for a minute to this story…my story and yours."
Claire had walked maybe three steps, when she stopped, and shaking her head, she turned, "You knew you'd have me wanting more. You know how badly I wanted, still want, to figure out the past and the future."
"Yeah I did, but see that's where the difference between you and your sister end," smirking, the sad kind filled with regrets at what has been she laughed, "I suppose I got you wanting even more now."
"I have a sister?" Claire asked approaching the table and sitting down, some of the anger having been replaced by pain and curiosity.
"Yes, slightly older by maybe two years and only by half, but she's my daughter. You don't exactly look much alike but, both do or will exhibit my abilities…"
"What do you mean? I don't have fire?" Claire asked skeptically.
"No…not yet. You see this is why I wanted to talk. All traits are inherited whether directly or mutations of a predecessor, and your power the one you use now stems from your father's…"
"But Nathan Petrelli can only fly!"
"Listen this is gonna be one hell of a long story and if you keep interrupting then I am never going to finish, so just listen," looking at her daughter's indignant face she smiled, "I know that may be hard for you but just give it a try…Now your father…He was quite an influential man, and I had been his advisor keeping many of his secrets even that of his, your brother, hidden from not only friends but from those who would use it against him. You know of the organization, the Company, founded by Angela Petrelli and others worldwide, including Linderman?" taking a breath and leaning over the table, looking directly into her daughter's eyes, "Well that's how I met both my girls' fathers."
"They worked together?" Claire asked slightly shocked at the notion, that her mother had moved between lovers in the Company.
"Not directly your father was much higher up and aloof then your sister's. Your sister's fahter recruited me for the Company to work like your father Bennett at catching, and I was the best. Robert Bishop is your sister's father, recently deceased as well. Well years back when I left him, he excommunicated me from the Company and from my daughter, Elle. Telling her for years that I had died, I never heard anything about Elle until recently…she seemingly has disappeared as well as I did."
"Do you mean slightly unstable, electric, Elle?" Claira asked mouth agape as her mother nodded.
Looking sadly at her hands and then back up at Claire, "If I could have done things differently for both of you I would have, but at the time I was in precarious position with the Company that I needed to escape. And as to her power, like I said inherited or inherited mutations, I am fire and she is electricity….I hadn't heard anything about her until the trade. No one other than myself and your father, knows of your true parentage, and now the Petrelli and Bennett know you are my daughter, but nothing more. And had it on good authority that my presence should stay hidden until now from you both," sighing she twirled a small fire ball between her fingers, "That's when I went into Linderman's protection and to make a long story short I did fall in love with him, and he did father you, but neither of us could afford a child, much less him, so when out on a mission for him, I slept with and formed a relationship with Nathan Petrelli, to pass you off as his."
"You used the Petrellis? And who is Linderman's son?" Claire demanded shocked by most of what she was hearing.
"Angela Petrelli, several years after her son, Nathan's birth had a liaison with Linderman, where she had a son, Gabriel Linderman…you may know him as Sylar," Meredith said looking up from the flame to her daughter's face, where the betrayal and anger seemed to seep from every pore.
Her own brother had brought her down, and she was set out to destroy him.
"Well to say you wouldn't be the first set of siblings wanting to kill each other is an understatement, but you should know that the Petrelli brothers would like him dead as well, if you didn't already know."
The Petrellis weren't her family…Peter wasn't her uncle.
"Well, Angela disappeared for a year, and came back from Paris just as she when she left and shortly later found herself with child, but all this was years before I met you father or Elle was born. So knowing that Angela Petrelli would do anything for her sons, I claimed you were her grandchild, and knowing the Petrellis look out for their own I was sure she would place you the best of care and keep your secret for always." Then looking up at Claire and lighting a flame she smiled, "Now onto the power, you must know by now that you are special, and that you can never die. While your father was obviously mortal, his blood could heal anyone and he could manifest himself into others' heads. I don't know the extent of what he found, but I know this," reaching to her jacket pocket she pulled out a folded brown envelope sealed, contained obvious papers, but as to what neither knew, "I never opened it, he said it was for you. Also you may like to know that half of his estate has been left to you Claire Linderman, I do believe your birth certificate is in there, but that is all I know," placing it in Claire's hands she smiled, "I think that Elle is just as lost and without a friend as you are, and Peter is needs your help and guidance."
Getting up from the table and carefully walking away she turned back and in the light you could see where her daughters got their looks, "This didn't happen so I suggest you disappear soon."
That was all Claire needed. Nodding her head in affirmation as she got up from the table, and passing Meredith, she looked once more into her eyes, in silent agreement of the secrets that she now held, and passing by and up the stairs she packed what she needed and set off, to find Elle and then Peter. And to get her revenge on her brother, Gabriel Petrelli Linderman…Sylar.
Little did she know that Elle was on her own war path, and quest for the answers that had alluded her as well.