Title: Hope

Characters: Claire Bennet, Peter Petrelli

Spoilers: S2, up to but not past 2X01

Rating: PG

Summary: Six long months of waiting are over...Claire and Peter are reunited and we all finally receive the answers we need.

Her dad thinks danger attracts her, the tantalizing call of possibilities and consequences consuming her idle thoughts.

Her father doesn't know her well enough to know whether she comes when he calls because of loyalty, love, or something more.

All she knows is that she hates California, hates living day to day pretending to be something she's not, and that she jumps at the chance to escape, consequences be damned.

When she packed a small bag and fell out her window (crushing her mother's roses), it almost felt like old times. In fact, the very act of sneaking out of her house in the middle of the night via window gave her unsettling déjà vu that echoed the night six months ago when Peter Petrelli had vanished from her life. In the wake left by that disturbing event, she'd spent a week alone in a motel outside of Houston, unsure of just what she was supposed to do with herself.

She'd always hated that feeling, being alone. Before she'd discovered her healing abilities she'd never thought about it. Having friends around, a potential crush, or being alone had made little difference to her thoughts. They'd revolved around the same concordance of subjects, boys, clothes, and school.

Then, as suddenly as a paper-cut on a finger, that'd all changed. The sheer number of possibilities the sudden realization of what her body could do had changed her mentally. The colors of the world seemed to become duller, the details blurred. The only time when she could truly say that things felt "normal" was when she was healing herself of injuries she caused.

That, more than anything, disturbed her.

In the beginning she'd only experimented with her abilities when she'd been alone. With that in mind, Claire had set out to never be alone. Her days were spent cheerleading, her afternoons with Jackie, and later, with Zach. Her evenings were spent with her family.

That left only the night to keep her awake and taunted by her thoughts.

Peter had changed all that. The night he'd saved her from Sylar was the first night she hadn't been consumed by insomnia. Despite the horrible circumstances, her former best friend's macabre death, the sudden knowledge that she was most definitely not alone, and that not one but two different forces wanted her for their own malevolent greed, she slept dreamless that night.

No, not dreamless, though what slipped through her mind was only faint in her mind, she did recall that a certain dark stranger (and not the one who tried to cut off the top of her head) played a starring role.

How she got from a hallway meeting in Odessa, Texas, to sneaking out of her "safe-house" to rush to New York to welcome him home, she had no idea. The journey seemed interminably long at the time, months of not knowing and wondering almost as bad as the months of loneliness that came before.

Claire's grin was broad and as bright as sunshine as she climbed into her Rogue, the car her dad had given her not realizing that she would use it to run away.

Her smile was one that had been unseen in the past half year, ever since Kirby Plaza.

It was back.

It was back, because Peter was back.

He was sitting in the living room when she burst in. It was almost midnight and the rest of the family had left hours ago at Peter's bequest. He'd needed time, alone, to reacclimate to his home. Until as recently as a few days ago the apartment had been occupied by his brother, a thought that he found almost as unsettling as the new beard on Nathan's face.

He jumped from his seat on the couch at the sudden commotion, instincts having electricity running along his arms and sparking at his fingertips as he turned to the door. That same instinct had him powering down the dangerous ability a bare second before Claire's small body slammed into his.

"Peter!"

Peter grinned into the top of her head, her hair tickling his nose, and choked out a response. "Hey, Claire."

"Don't be so nonchalant," Claire chastised as she leaned back to really look at him, running her fingers through his shorn hair affectionately. "I was so worried!"

He could see it in her eyes, those baby blues shining with tears that she refused to let fall. He brushed the back of his knuckles down the curve of her cheek, mimicking a movement from that day long ago. A tear slipped out to follow the path of his hand, spilling over the dimple caused by her sudden grin. She pushed him down onto the couch and sat beside him, refusing to relinquish his hand.

"Tell me everything. Where have you been?"

"For the past two months? Cork."

"Cork?"

"Ireland."

"What? Really? I love Ireland!"

Peter's smile was growing by the second, Claire's enthusiasm and happiness spreading between them easily. "I'll take you there. I've got friends there." Specifically, there was a friend there who was a "girl" but not a "girlfriend". He, however, was not stupid and did not intend to tell Claire that.

There were things he needed to tell her though.

"I'd love to go!" Claire said, her body shifting closer to Peter's on the couch. "What else?"

"I, uh, I learned some things. About myself, about my family, about a lot of things."

The sudden serious tone in his voice, so stern and unlike the affable Peter she remembered, had Claire's smile dimming just a bit. "Like what?"

The words started to spill out of him, explanations for questions he'd never known to ask. "I was found by the Company after what happened in Kirby Plaza. They nursed me back to good health, and began to..."

Claire's worst fears imagined taking root in reality with Peter. He didn't have to explain, the look on his face said it all. Her hands clutched at his, small and pale fingers wrapped around tanned and callused ones. "Oh, Peter..."

He shook his head as if to dispel the memories and smiled grimly at her. "While I was being held, a lot of people came by the cell. I had Officer Parkman's ability and with what they were doing to me I couldn't turn it off. I heard a lot of stuff I don't think I was meant to."

Claire wanted to speak, her mouth opened and closed several times. Finally, she just shook her head sadly and pressed her forehead into his shoulder to hide the tears that spilled down her face at the thought of his torment.

"I learned that there is a prophecy foretold by someone like Isaac that concerned us, all of us. I learned that Lindermann and seven others have been orchestrating events to try and either fulfill or prevent that prophecy, I'm not sure which. They killed people, bribed others, kidnapped and placed children in certain homes, and generally played God." Peter's voice became stronger as he spoke, his anger replacing the terror of that time. "New York blowing up, the mysterious plague, even Sylar was all planned ahead of time."

Claire held tighter to his arm, her mind taking in his words but not the meaning behind him.

Peter was silent for several minutes, his mind elsewhere, but he finally turned his attention back to her. "When I said that they kidnapped and placed children, that includes me. Nathan isn't my brother, the Petrellis aren't my family, and you are not my niece."

Claire's head shot up, her eyes connecting with Peter's as reality caught up with them all too fast. "You mean..."

He smiled crookedly, his eyes dreamingly soft, and for a second he was the 'old' Peter. "Yeah. That's what I mean."

Peter cradled her face, studying every line, every curve, the soft blush that flew across her face.

When their lips met for the first time...

It was perfect.