Title: Blood Ties
Author: Counter Spark
Disclaimer: Oh how I wished I owned Heroes right now and all it's lovely characters. Tragically, I do not. This is the only reason that Nathan Petrelli has not been shirtless in every episode and isn't bulletproof.
Summary: After the resurrection of her father, Claire witnesses something unimaginable on the television- the slaying of her other one. And she wants to do something about it. Oneshot set after "Powerless".
Author's Note: This oneshot is basically me writing out what needs to happen in the first episode of Volume Three. Pretty much if the storyline doesn't loosely follow what I've written, well...that's messed up. I like it- I feel like it taps into the connection that Claire and Nathan have as a family, a connection that may possibly be cut tragically short (let's hope not, my friends). Hopefully you like it and will review me with great pleasure. With that said, please enjoy!
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He'd left. Again. Not very surprising to say the least; she'd become so used to his absence that it hardly mattered anymore. Having him gone seemed somehow...normal, she thought, flipping mindlessly through the channels on the television, eyes not even comprehending the images that flooded by. Not seeing the sunlight flash across her father's horn-rimmed glasses as they ate dinner together had painfully become bearable, and now that he was back it seemed to her to be a priceless gift. She had thought him dead for what had seemed a nightmarish eternity, but now he was alive again...because of her. Because of her blood.
It seemed unbelievable; for so long her father had fought- had killed- to keep the Company away from her. He had uprooted their homely Texan life and moved far away from every comfort save each other's blessed company. Then she started to fight it. She started to push it away the moment she saw that miniscule, thoughtless scar on West's bare neck as he looked serenely towards the ocean. Her father had been responsible for that. And for that she truly hated her father, be it only for a few guilty moments.
But then he died for her. Screaming and fighting, West had held her back as she heard the sudden crack of the gunshot and the spray of blood from her father's eye- the bits of glass from the spectacles that she had chosen erupting and falling amongst the hot summer asphalt. All for her. Wasn't it always all for her?
She had missed him so much that it hurt to think- the only solace she found was in sleep or complete blankness, staring at her bedroom walls for hours at a time, not moving and lost in the nothingness of her grief. Even West wouldn't do; his arms around her felt distant, unable to penetrate the hole that her father's death had dug into the pits of her stomach. She wanted to forget. She wanted not to feel.
But then he came back.
Yet everything, even after the resurrection, seemed skewed. Her heart erupted with fear and joy and absolute gratitude when she saw her late father standing at the door, the sun breaking from around his figure as though he were some arisen deity. Her father had come back to life, but it was with a price. He had told her that. The precious, special blood that ran through her veins had defied death, but it was with a price. What that price was, she didn't know, but she had the foreboding sensation that she'd find out soon enough.
"Claire! Dinner in five, alright?" Her mother's voice broke her train of thought as the smell of a chicken dinner wafted into the living room. She heard Mr. Muggles yipping happily- the sound of her brother running the faucet upstairs to wash his hands before supper. She smiled. Everything was back to normal. Well...almost.
"Where's Dad?"
A slight hesitation. "I'm...I'm not sure, honey. But he'll be back around nine, he said."
Nine? It was five o' clock. What could the Company need from her newly arisen father that would keep him for four more hours? Part of her desired to know while the other detested every fiber of herself that questioned this. Her father had made a deal. It was either take the deal or death. I can take my father being involved in shady situations if it means he gets to stay alive, she thought, feeling slightly nauseous at the idea of losing him again. It would be unbearable. She'd rather come crashing down from the peaks of Mount Everest or walk through the most sweltering of fires than lose him again.
For some strange reason, tears began to well up inside of her, the fear settling deep within her heart. Sure, she hated the deal her father had made, whatever it may be. He had sold his soul to the devil in a way- signed a contract in blood. But she'd rather tossed be in the mist again about her father's work than be thrown back into that sickening world of sorrow and loss. No shady deal could be worse than that.
She flipped the channel and brought her attention momentarily back the television, 'Breaking News' splayed in huge red letters at the top of the screen. It was hard to make out what was happening- white, blinding camera flashes made it almost impossible to see what was actually being pictured. There were too many people, too much sound...she picked up the remote and traced her thumb over the off button before the husky, assertive voice of the newscaster helped relay what was actually happening amidst all of the chaos. Claire listened intently.
"...former congressman Nathan Petrelli-"
Her heart seized, panic releasing from her very core and spreading sickeningly to the rest of her body.
"- Was shot by an unknown assassin at 4:38 this afternoon."
Oh, God. No, no, no. She leapt from the couch and stood in front of the screen, mind racing as she tried to see through the endlessly flashing bulbs. No such luck. She numbly felt a tear roll down her cheek. Is he okay? Is Nathan okay? Silently and without the realization of what she was doing, she prayed for her long-lost biological father. It was all so confusing- she had already thought he was dead once before. She had watched him lovingly embrace her own uncle and fly into the New York night. She had heard the boom of explosion- saw the orange flash through the midnight blue. Then she had recieved a tear-filled phone call from her biological father telling her that he had survived a nuclear explosion, a choked up voice adding that Peter hadn't been so lucky. Claire had questioned further, but he had cut her off shortly, apparently overcome, and hung up the phone, keeping her from all of the answers that she longed to have.
She was still in the dark about his survival- about how someone could've possibly avoided such a fiery and heroic death . So he lived? But how? She shook her head, mind buzzing painfully from thinking too much. At this point it was irrelevant. He had been alive for months now as well as 4:37 today. But what happened at 4:38? In the back of her mind she heard Lyle urging her to come to dinner, Mr. Muggles barking loudly in the background, the scamper of his pawed feet reaching her ears among the panic.
Then the bulbs dimmed and the cameraman found a way to navigate through the photographers. And slowly, she saw it. Claire sank to the floor, dazed.
There was the man that was her biological father, dying in the arms of her uncle, two bullet wounds standing out starkly against his nice blue shirt. They had both lived. She realized dimly that she was watching her family now. Her technical family.
"Dad," she whispered faintly, realizing for the first time that she was addressing Nathan Petrelli, someone she'd met about five months ago, as her true father. She felt oddly guilty for this, but they were blood; they were connected forever. Acknowledging this was not denouncing the family she knew. Then the panic hit again and she noticed the way Peter was screaming at him, horror and desperation in his eyes. Was he...dying?
Nathan beheld Peter with glazed eyes, life slowly fading from the lively hazel that she had first became acquainted with not so long ago. Her body went cold, her hands rigid- the father she'd never had was dying, and she was so far away from him. Tears burning her cheeks, she gasped as the camera wobbled and lost focus, and within a moment she was once again viewing a mass of people, blinding flashes of white distorting the picture.
Claire stood up again, anger and terror pumping through her veins. She turned around helplessly and noticed her mother and brother watching soundlessly with dumbstruck faces. They had seen, too. Staring into her mother's shocked eyes, she screamed the question that was ripping through her heart, hurting worse than any fall or burn ever could. "Is he okay?" Claire felt her voice tremble on the edge of hysterics. "Mom, is he okay?!"
Sandra Bennet stared helplessly at her daughter, unable to speak or move.
She turned back towards the television as it repeated itself, no developments or statements of relief. Just the obvious. "...Former congressman Nathan Petrelli was shot by an unknown assassin at 4:38 this afternoon."
Burying her head in her hands, a sneaking image of her non-technical father flooded her mind, horn-rimmed glasses glinting in the sunlight as he called her Claire-bear. She didn't know why she thought of him now, the father she knew, while she watched the father she thought she'd lost dying on national television. There was a connection, she knew this without a doubt, and yet the puzzle remained mostly unsolved. She didn't know how her father played into the shooting, but he was unquestionably responsible. This knowledge filled her with dread as another new line flitted at the bottom of the screen.
'...The shooting took place in Odessa, Texas during an impromptu press conference..."
"Odessa," she breathed, wiping her wet face with her sleeve. "Odessa..." Claire turned to face her mother, face set.
Concern flashed across Mrs. Bennet's face, sensing something brewing within her daughter. She spoke slowly, as if fearing the answer that would come. "What is it, Claire?"
Claire could feel the blood pumping through her- the blood that defied nature. The blood that had already saved one of her fathers. In this moment, she knew what had to be done, the image of a screaming Peter and a dying Nathan setting everything in stone. "Mom...I'm going back to Odessa. Now."