Like A Hurricane

Characters/Pairings: Claire/Edgar, Peter/Sylar, Matt/Mohinder, Noah Bennet, Igor

Author's Note: I started this a while back, after watching the Buffy season 4 episode Something Blue. It just spoke to the crack writer in me. Title from the Ducktales theme, of all things.

Warnings/Spoilers: Crack. Slash. Het. The ship Claire/Edgar (I know where that came from, I picked the randomest guy I could think of, and apparently that was Edgar). Spoilers for volume 5, I'm guessing. Crack. Resurrection of dead people. Claire angst (poor girl, really). More crack. Mohinder the mad scientist, implied.

Disclaimer: I do not own Heroes. This fic was inspired by a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode. I don't own Buffy either. This fic was written for entertainment purposes only. Got a bit crazy there.

There was a fly on the ceiling. If Claire had had heat ray vision instead of this stupid regeneration, it would have been dead in seconds she was gazing at it so intently. If she had had anything but this stupid fucking regeneration, she might have been able to save him.

She blinked the tears out of her eyes and turned on her side, leaving the fly to its business, for now. When she closed her eyes, and even sometimes when they were open, she saw his face, the pain and anguish twisting every feature. She could still recognise him – she'd always recognise him – but he was different. Changed. Not simply hers anymore. In giving his life to save the world, he had given himself to the people of that world, people who would never truly know the sacrifice he had made.

Sometimes she cursed the gods, God, Fate, even Lady Fortune herself, for the choice they had led him to. He was hers and she was his, forever and always. That's what they had said to each other, in that dingy motel room, lying on that bed, side by side. It had been flimsy, at best. When it had finally come to make the choice, somehow she knew it had been made long ago.

No one cared about her grief though. They said she should take the time to sort everything out, then only seconds later added that they wanted her to be in this, that or the other place. They wanted her expertise. They wanted her to help them in the fight against yet another megalomaniac. They wanted her to help catch that old, suddenly very annoying one. They wanted her to do everything for them, or so it seemed to her, and all she wanted was to be left alone.

There was a pain in her chest that wouldn't go away. Sometimes it paralysed her, kept her still for hours on end, leaving her shaking and shivering, and she'd almost believe it was a physical reaction to something, some poison, some malady. She would almost forget about that regeneration, which was more trouble than it was worth.

She went to see her father, but he was busy, glancing through file upon file for some way to defeat the latest megalomaniac (she didn't even know his/her name). He sighed half way through her monologue and gazed over at her, sitting on the armchair opposite him. "I'm sorry, Claire, I really am," he said, and she almost convinced herself that he was. "But I have so much I have to look over before tonight's battle, it's just...I'm sorry." He looked at her, but didn't seem to see her. She felt a strange anger appear, slow, sinuous.

"Maybe you could go talk to your mother," her father offered.

She brought the anger about her like a cloak, a shield against the grief and pain. "Fine," she said abruptly, standing up and marching toward the door. She paused and turned back, something reaching across universes and tapping into her grief. "You're so blind, you don't even see what's right in front of you!"

She stormed out, slamming the door behind her. Noah gazed after her, stunned. He really had no idea what he'd said to make her so angry. He blinked through suddenly fuzzy vision, and wondered if he had forgotten to put his glasses on. But no, they were there, where they were supposed to be. How odd.

Claire, realising – unlike her father, apparently – that her mother was very far away, instead went to Mohinder's apartment, in search of Peter who was usually found in the vicinity of the geneticist for reasons best known to himself. Sadly, and much to her disappointment and increasing anger, her uncle wasn't there. Instead Mohinder was there, experimenting on something; she didn't really want to know exactly what. He glanced up as she entered the apartment. "Claire," he said, smiling. "I'm sorry, but if you were looking for Peter, he's out looking for Sylar."

Claire's anger increased. Peter was always out looking for Sylar, who had become rather a nuisance when compared to many of the other megalomaniacs they had battled over the years. Now it was Peter's Big Goal to capture Sylar and possibly torture him, he hadn't decided yet. He was slightly bored, clear as that may be.

"Why does he just go marry Sylar, if he cares so much about him?" she snarled. Again something reached across universes (far away in some random alleyway in New York City, Peter went from punching Sylar to making out with him in two seconds flat. Once they had broken away from each other to catch their breaths, Peter gasped out, "Will you marry me?" Sylar answered in the affirmative and they began to make out again).

Mohinder glanced up at her, his eyebrows rising in surprise at her obviously ludicrous question. "Claire, you know that would never happen," he said, "You know they hate each other. Why would you say such hurtful things?"

She glared at nothing in particular, crossing her arms. "Because he should be here, not out hunting Sylar, who by the way is really annoying. If he hates him so much, why hasn't he killed him yet."

"Because Sylar manages to slither his way out of every potentially harmful – to himself – situation," Mohinder said, matter of fact. "He's like a fucking cockroach," he added, a strange resentment entering his voice, "He'll end up surviving the apocalyse, you mark my words."

Claire snorted, since she didn't know what else to say. Her anger was starting to dissapate, leaving her open to the very harmful effects of her pain and grief. She needed something to distract her, burgeon her anger until it was as uncontrollable as it was moments ago. She glanced around Mohinder's lab, in case there was anything there that could help.

Matt chose that moment to walk out of the bedroom, yawning and wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. It was not a pretty sight. Claire's eyes twitched. Matt and Mohinder were fucking? Was she getting this right? Oh, that would be so inconvvenient. And wasn't Matt married? Or had they divorced again? It wasn't like she'd had time to keep up on the gossip.

Matt froze when he spotted her. He smiled, sheepishly. "Oh," he said, and gave a rather nervous wave. "Hello, Claire. I didn't know you were here."

"I guess you didn't," she replied. She tried to stop her eye from twitching. She failed.

"Pancakes!" he said rather randomly, and made his way to the kitchen. "I can make pancakes. Do you want pancakes, Claire?"

Claire shrugs. Like pancakes would make her feel better. She'd tried them, to be sure. They hadn't worked.

"Fuck you and your stupid pancakes," she snarled.

Matt looked shocked. Mohinder dropped a test tube, which shattered upon impact with the very unfriendly ground.

"Can't you see how I'm feeling?" she yelled, ignoring Mohinder who had bent to clean up the mess he'd made. Matt abandoned the pancakes in order to help him. "Pancakes are not going to help! The man I loved is dead and there's nothing I can do about that! And you," she added, her sharp bitter tone causing Mohinder to freeze as her gaze turned toward him, "you and your adulterous boyfriend..."

"Actually, I'm not married anymore," Matt said.

Claire ignored him. "...having all these fun sexytimes," she continued on in the same vein. "Rub it in some more, why don't you? Add some salt, if you're feeling really sadistic or just want to add to the overall flavour! At least I know it'll never work. Both of your previous relationships have crashed and burned, why not this one?" She sneered at them. "Thank you and goodnight!" She gave a mocking example of a bow and then left.

In the silence that followed her departure, Matt looked at Mohinder and whistled. "Wow, she's really gone round the bend," he said.

"No kidding," Mohinder replied. He sighed and sat back on his heels. "If only there was something we could do for her..."

Matt sat up straighter. "Hey," he said, poking Mohinder in the arm. "What about that potion – "

"Formula," Mohinder muttered.

Matt instantly corrected himself. "...formula you were working on? You know, the one to bring back the dead? I'm sure Claire would like it if we brought her dead boyfriend back from the beyond. It's not like we'd be pulling him out of a potential heavenly dimension or anything."

Mohinder snapped his fingers. "You're right! Matt, go dig up his body. Igor," he motioned to his assistant, who had been hanging around in the kitchen, hoping for pancakes, "any chance of lightning tonight?"

Igor nodded. "Yeth, marthter, lotth of it."

Mohinder rubbed his hands together gleefully. "Excellent!" He became aware that Matt had not left and was in fact standing in the middle of the room, gazing thoughtfully at the floor.

"What's wrong?" he asked, coming to rest a comforting hand on the telepath's shoulder.

Matt looked up. "Perhaps I should have offered her waffles instead."

Meanwhile on the other side of town Claire stumbled her way over to Peter's apartment which, she reflected, was perhaps where she should have gone in the first place. Her face felt wet and so she wiped at it with her hands, belatedly realising that she had started crying. Huh. She'd thought she was over that stage. Obviously not.

She was so busy wiping tears from her eyes that she didn't notice what was going on around her until she had ventured half way into the apartment.

"PETER?!" she yelled, and then threw her hands up at the ceiling. "ARGH, WHAT MADNESS IS THIS, WORLD? ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?"

Peter and Sylar didn't even appear to notice her. All they did was continue to do what they had been doing before Claire had walked in on them. Which was: the coffee table before them was stacked with piles of what looked like those wedding magazines she always saw in stores. They had their arms around each other and were cooing, or something that looked suspiciously like it, in each other's ears. Claire took this as the world's resounding yes to the thought that it was trying to kill her. It occured to her that, if he had not have died when he had, they would have been picking out wedding dresses and cooing inappropriately in each other's ears. She promptly burst into tears at the thought.

Peter looked up at the sound and grinned at her. "Claire!" he exclaimed, coming over to give her a hug. "Great! You'll be the first to hear the good news!"

She blinked at him through her tears. Good news? How could anything be good at a time like this?

Even though she gave him next to no encouragement, Peter beamed at her and said, "Sylar and I are getting married! Isn't that simply marvelous?"

Claire turned her head slightly, to take in Sylar who was watching them from the sofa. He nodded when their eyes met. "It's true," he said, and then grinned. "Isn't it amazing?" He gave Peter the most loving expression Claire had ever seen. "I love him so much."

Peter let go of Claire and bounded over to him. "I love you too, baby," he said, almost purring and then, right in front of her like it was a normal everyday occurrence, stuck his tongue down Sylar's throat and commenced making out with him. They both seemed to enjoy the activity very much and were very enthusiastically getting into it when something banged on the door.

Claire tore her eyes away from the horrifyingly fascinating scene before her to open it. Her father was standing there, looking at something over her shoulder. She expected him to yell in surprise at the sight that would meet his eyes. He didn't. Instead he said, his brow furrowing in confusion, "Peter? Are you there?"

She frowned and was about to ask how he had happened to mistake her for Peter, when the man himself bounded over and wrapped his arms around her Dad in a great bear hug. He pulled away almost instantly and grinned up at him. "It's like Christmas!" he said. "You can hear the good news too!"

"I'll certainly be happy to hear some," her Dad said wryly as Peter dragged him into the room and led him to one of the armchairs. "What's this good news then?" he asks once he was seated comfortablely.

"Sylar and I are getting married!" Peter exclaimed, taking Sylar's hand in his and giving it a squeeze. "Isn't that marvelous?"

Her Dad reacted as expected. He choked on empty air and Peter had go over and check that he was alright. Once Dad had stopped choking, he asked Peter to reiterate his previous two sentences. Peter did, obviously taking great delight in repeating his 'good news.' Dad started to choke again.

There was a flash of lightning. Claire jumped. So did Sylar, right into Peter's arms. "Oh, I'll protect you, baby," Peter said. They started to kiss again. Claire averted her eyes.

"I don't want to know what they're doing, do I?" Dad asked.

"No, you really don't," she managed to say.

There was another flash of lightning, followed by a rumble of thunder. After silence had descended, Dad said, quietly, "I think I'm blind."

Peter broke the kiss to stare at him in horror. "Oh no! That's horrible! And I was so set on you giving either of us away. Now that simply won't do. We don't want you falling into our guests, now, do we?"

"Peter," Sylar murmured from where he was pressed up against his apparent fiance's neck. "That was harsh. The guy's just discovered he's blind. Give him a little slack, will you?"

Peter pulled back to gaze at him, entirely too much love in his eyes. Claire felt her eyes welling up with tears again. "I knew you cared about people," he whispered. "Oh, I do love you, Sylar!"

They started to kiss again. Claire let her head fall into her hands.

Oh boy. This was going to get ugly. She was going to slap a bitch if something else equally weird happened.

The door burst open, to reveal...him! Her one and only love! Okay, he had obviously been dead for awhile, but someone had been kind enough to give him a fresh pair of clothes and tidy up his hair. She ran toward him and threw her arms around him, her heart fairly bursting with joy. "Oh, Edgar, my love, you're alive!" she shouted, burying her face in the crook of her neck.

He grinned at the room in general, which now counted Matt and Mohinder among its occupants. "Well, so to speak," he said, spinning them around the room. She threw back her head and laughed, all the while clutching him as though she would never let him go again.

In the background, she was vaguely aware that Peter had bounded up to Matt and Mohinder, shouting, "Guess what, you guys! Sylar and I are getting married!"

Mohinder's mouth fell open and he turned to Matt for confirmation. Matt nodded.

Peter, now that everyone who was anyone knew the good news, went back to Sylar. "Claire's kissing a dead guy," he said, quite matter of fact about it. Sylar nodded, although he didn't really care.

Dad spoke up then. "What do you mean, Claire's kissing a dead guy? What dead guy?"

Claire broke the kiss, cringing slightly. Shit. And she had been so hoping she'd get out of the whole meeting the parents thing.

"Edgar, this is my Dad," she said, gesturing at him. He gazed unseeingly off to the side, funnily enough right at where Peter and Sylar were playing tonsil hockey on the sofa. "Dad, this is Edgar."

"Pleased to meet you," Edgar said, managing to catch the hand Dad had been waving haphazardly around. "Again. Well, we didn't really have a pleasant first meeting, but you can't have everything."

"Edgar?" Dad frowned. "Edgar...what?! Knife throwing Edgar, the one who gutted me that one time? And you think you can just date my daughter?"

"I did sacrifice myself to save the world," Edgar pointed out, wrapping an arm around Claire. She smiled happily and leaned in closer. "That tends to earn you a few brownie points."

"But..." Dad's frown deepened. "He's the one you've been moping about? I thought you were sad because the last Harry Potter movie wasn't coming out until next June."

Claire's mouth fell open. "You really think I'm that shallow?"

"You haven't given us much incentive to think otherwise," Peter said as he unbuttoned Sylar's shirt.

"You all thought that was the reason I was sad?" Claire was shocked. She felt the tears welling up again, and the only Edgar's presence kept them at bay.

Matt, Mohinder and Sylar raised their hands. "We didn't," Mohinder said. "Then again, we were all there so of course we knew the real reason."

"Hey," Sylar said, pausing to sit up and take his shirt off. He threw it to the ground and continued. "I wasn't there, and I guessed right."

Mohinder nodded. "True."

Peter frowned. "You know," he said slowly. Claire glanced up, hope shining in her eyes. "I think you're the better person in this relationship," Peter said, looking at Sylar with that fucking loving light in his eyes. Claire groaned in frustration. Edgar patted her back sympathetically.

"No, Peter," Sylar said. "You're the better person. I love you so much."

Mohinder mimed throwing up. Claire thought seriously about joining him. For real, though.

"Why are they getting married again?" Matt whispered.

"Didn't you hear?" Mohinder rolled his eyes. "Apparently they love each other so much!"

Matt frowned. "But...isn't it a highly unlikely coincidence that directly after Claire suggests they get married, they do in fact decide to get married? I'm not the only one to find that odd, am I?"

Dad jumped to his feet. He took a step forward, his arm raised, and might very well have tripped and crashed into the coffee table if Edgar hadn't been as quick as he was. "That's it!" Dad shouted, grabbing onto Edgar. "That's why I'm blind! You said it, Claire, you said that I was so blind, I couldn't even see what was right in front of me."

Claire was confused. "Do I have a new power?"

Peter looked up at that, returning Sylar's smile with one of his own and letting him pet his hair as he did so. "You have a new power?" He looked interested. "What is it?"

"...the power of persuasion?" Matt said hesitantly.

Dad shrugged. "Could be."

"Really?" Sylar asked, obviously interested.

Peter swatted at him. "None of that," he said, frowning.

Sylar smiled at him. "Anything you say, baby."

Claire averted her eyes as they again began to make out.

"I am so glad I'm blind right now," Dad muttered.

Matt covered his eyes. "Can you make them stop doing that, Claire?" he asked plantively. He peeked through his fingers, to find them still going at it. "Now would be preferable."

"Okay then." She cleared her throat. "Sylar and Peter do not want to get married because they hate each other's guts." She nodded firmly. There, that should do it.

They waited.

"They look like they're eating each other's faces," Edgar said, tilting his head and gazing at them with a kind of morbid fascination. He turned to Claire. "I don't think it worked."

"Okay, I'll go for something a little more simple." She turned to Dad. "Dad's not blind, he's just a little oblivious. It's probably where Lyle gets it," she can't help but mutter.

"Hey," Dad begins, and then stops himself. "Hey, I can see!" He grins at Claire and she lets him hug her because there's obviously no way out of it.

"You can see, Noah?" Peter gasps out as he and Sylar finally break their kiss, Sylar beginning to attack his neck now, with nips and little butterfly kisses. "That's brilliant!"

"You don't want to marry him!" Claire burst out. "I just said that because I was mad at you!" Edgar put his arm around her.

Peter froze. So did Sylar, actually, but mostly Claire was focused on Peter. "Out," he said quietly. She opened her mouth argue. "Out! Everybody, get out!"

They all decided that it would probably be best to obey Peter. So they went out into the corridor and the door was slammed behind them. At certain intervals, they heard crashing and banging, followed by unintelligible shouted words.

They all breathed a collective sigh of relief. "Well, it's good to know they're back to normal," Matt said, sharing a relieved grin with Mohinder.

Claire wrapped her arms around Edgar and sighed happily. Things were finally back to the way they should be.

Well, almost.

It was a surprise to all but Igor when Peter and Sylar announced they were getting married anyway. It was only unsurprising to Igor because nothing surprised him all that much anymore.

Review please.