Title: Brave New World
Author: sorion
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Sylar/Claire
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~2,400
Summary: Claire's POV. Claire's first step into trusting the enemy.
AN: Set before "Brave".
Again, I might write more for this 'verse, but I don't know yet :) I'll just add a chapter if something pokes my muse ;)
Brave New World
I stood in front of Peter's apartment door, carrying a box of cookies I knew I probably liked more than he did, but he wouldn't mind sharing them with me, if I knew him at all, and I liked to think that I did.
Our meetings had become a more regular thing than they'd been before my… admittedly a little rash decision to just jump off a Ferris wheel with the whole world watching, but thankfully, the aftermath wasn't as dramatic as it could have been (at least so far, nothing terribly bad had happened). Politicians and scientists had pretty much fallen over themselves and each other, which had had the advantage that the actual Specials weren't all that interesting, apparently. Well, apart from those who liked running up and down talkshows, either with a talent or by claiming to know someone who had one.
The "indestructible girl" had become somewhat of an icon… Claire Bennet, on the other hand, hadn't. Whenever I pulled back my hair and dressed less like a teenager, I hardly even got recognised these days.
But opening up to the world made me want to connect more to the people in my world, the people who had become part of my journey.
One of them was of course my personal hero.
I smiled and rang the bell, noticing that I was a little early, not that Peter would mind.
However, half a second before the door opened, I remembered one tiny little complication in me being early, and I froze.
All those times I had visited Peter, I'd never seen so much as a hair of… him. Sure, in theory, I knew that he lived here with my uncle, but… I'd kind of… forgotten. Or maybe I just didn't let myself think about it.
Well, I had to think about it now. Sylar was opening the door, looking kind of hassled and surprised.
"Claire? I… you're early." Which confirmed my theory that he actively kept out of my way. How… considerate of him.
Sy- "Gabriel," I said and nodded curtly, proud that I only hesitated for a second and didn't say the other name out loud. I had started to force myself to do that, because whenever I said Sylar when talking to Peter, he got that sad, hurt and maybe a bit disappointed look on his face. And I really didn't want to hurt Peter.
He stepped to the side, unsure where he should direct his gaze and cleared his throat. "Look, I, uh. Just help yourself to anything in the kitchen, I was about to leave, and…"
Oh, God. I didn't know what surprised me more, him trying to be tactful or me saying what I was about to say.
"I'm not gonna kick you out of your own home… Gabriel." Damn. I hesitated, this time.
He obviously noticed my hesitating and smiled a bit, closing the door behind me.
"Sorry for being a lousy host, but I have something I need to finish, so… you know where the drinks are," he said, walking to the other side of the big room where he'd had a table set up with utensils on it. Apparently, he'd been working on a watch. I had seen that table, before, just not with him sitting behind it.
I wondered if he really had to work on it or just assumed that I'd rather drink fire than something he handed to me. The obvious changes in him and Peter's absolute trust aside, he wasn't entirely wrong about that, so I got myself my own drink.
When I left the kitchen, I stayed close to the door and watched S- Gabriel work. He was wearing a calm and concentrated look, never once looking up to where I was sure he must have known I was standing. Then, after a long while of my watching and his working, he closed the back of the watch, held it up to his ear with his eyes closed and… a tiny, serene smile grew on his face. It looked as if, for him, all was well in the world in that one moment the watch was ticking the way it was supposed to.
Peter had once told me that he had refused to talk to Sylar in that nightmare of his for an entire month. Right now, I couldn't for the life of me imagine how he possibly could have managed that, when I, after only a few minutes with him in the same room, now slowly walked up to him, saying with a voice that was hopefully less hesitant than I feared:
"Does it work, again?"
His smile didn't falter as he lifted his head. "It was running slow. Should be fine, now." He laid it on the table almost tenderly to where I could now see other watches waiting to be tended to.
Great. Now what? Now I was standing there like an idiot, naturally having no clue at all what I could say to that guy. But since I was now standing next to him, maybe I should make myself say… something. Anything.
He looked at me patiently, which should have made me nervous but somehow didn't.
"So, uh, I hear your name's been cleared." Okay, that was admittedly maybe not the best thing to say.
He took the opportunity for a dialogue, anyway and shrugged. "The only thing Gabriel Gray was ever persecuted for was… the death of my mother." He averted his eyes, and I wasn't sure whether he hesitated because the woman wasn't really his mother or because she was dead. "And I have two eye witnesses that that one at least was an accident."
He didn't even try to hide his emphasis on 'that one', not that he could have hidden its meaning from me, since I'd known about most of his 'other ones' – some of them painfully personally – but still… somehow it meant something to me.
He continued: "And Micah owed me a favour. So it really was only a matter of changing the data," he rushed out.
I gingerly sat down on a chair around the corner to his left and tried to convince myself that there was not a knot in my stomach the size of Manhattan because of it.
"Favour?" I asked.
He blinked and looked at me again. "He never mentioned it?"
I'd seen Micah every now and again, and, yes, he had shown a disturbing amount of trust in Sylar, but, no… he hadn't. I frowned. "No, I just know that he trusts you." I swallowed the 'for some reason' that I really wanted to add to that sentence.
He cleared his throat again. "I changed into him the one time Danko went after him. Took a bullet and went for a dive." He smirked, hinting at the fact that the all-powerful man was still there, even if he spent his days fixing watches and convincing my uncle that he was right up there with Ghandi and mother Theresa.
But then what he said hit me. "You saved his life?"
That made him lean back in his seat and cross his arms. "I actually did a good thing or two in my life, you know. Including saving you." He raised an eyebrow.
Oh. That. At the time, I'd been so scared and angry that I never saw what he did as what it was. He… had saved me, hadn't he?
"Yeah…" I started grudgingly, staring at my lap. "Thanks for that, by the way."
He stifled a laugh.
"You would find that funny," I grumbled, and he laughed out loud. My lip twitched completely against my will.
"You know…" he started, "… that day, it felt… so good that Noah actually came to me, saying that he needed my help with that target. I remember thinking that I'd be the best agent ever, just so he'd see that I could." He snorted. "Irony is a funny thing, isn't it?" He smirked at me. "And you know why he wanted me to go along, now, don't you?"
I smirked right back. "Well, you kind of deserved it."
His smirk widened. "I kind of did," he agreed, and I had to laugh.
This felt ridiculously liberating. The two of us laughing over my dad trying to kill him. Then I remembered that someone had died that day.
"What he did was still messed up," I said, my smile faltering. I did understand on some level why dad had done it, but…
"Hmm," he hummed in agreement, apparently feeling that this was not a topic to stay on. "Your watch is off," he said, instead. "Lemme see." He held out his hand.
"My watch is fine," I protested.
"No, it's not."
I rolled my eyes and took it off with a long suffering sigh.
He grinned at my theatrics and took it, holding it to his ear, concentrating. He shook it slightly and frowned.
"Did this suffer any blows or something?" he asked, sounding almost accusing.
I shifted in my seat, as if it was a capital offense to not take proper care of a watch. "It… uh… may or may not have been in my back pocket when I went off the Ferris wheel?" I sort of admitted.
He sent me a look. "Really?"
This time it was me who crossed her arms, and I huffed.
He chuckled. "Relax. I'm just messing with you."
I sent him a dark look. "Maybe that's not the thing you should be doing," I said, making clear that I expected better behaviour if he ever wanted me to not completely distrust him.
He just smiled and went to open the back of the watch, neither seeing nor returning my stare. "You're tough, Claire. I wouldn't joke around with you if I thought you couldn't take it."
Was that a compliment? "Thanks."
"You're welcome." He turned the head of his desk lamp to light the whirring insides of my watch. "Should you ever be ready to hear my apologies, by the way, let me know," he said, casually.
I did a double take. "What?" I stared at him incredulously. "You think apologies are going to make things better?"
He sighed. "Of course not," he said. "But maybe… that I mean them? Maybe that you know I won't ever do something like that again?"
I was going to answer that I didn't actually know that, but then again, that was probably what he meant by me not being ready to hear his apologies.
He looked up at me. "Maybe that you played a large part in my wanting to change?"
I tilted my head, surprised, and I thought about that for a moment. "Well, it might make me feel a little better, but…"
"Then I got what I wanted." He smiled benignly. "Apologies aren't supposed to make oneself feel better, after all."
I actually held his gaze for a long moment, and it didn't feel frightening or invading or something. We were kind of on the same page of a painful book. But at least it was a new page.
"Maybe someday I'll be ready for some of those apologies of yours," I allowed. I hoped.
He smiled for a bit and then pushed my watch towards me, making the lamp follow the movement telekinetically.
I blinked. "What?"
He nodded towards the watch. "Have a look."
I stared into the machinery. "What am I looking for?"
"You tell me."
I rolled my eyes but kept looking. Then I blinked. "Is that one wheel supposed to do that?"
"What's it doing?" he asked calmly.
I tilted my head. "It's… kind of moving sideways. Just a little." I looked up at him in askance.
He smiled widely. "No, it's not supposed to do that."
I stared back into the watch.
"You found it," he stated, sounding almost proud, and I wasn't quite sure if he was making fun of me, but when I looked at him again, his smile looked sincere. "So, now what would you do to fix it?" he asked.
"I guess… if it's just loose, I'd tighten it, but there might be something broken." I suddenly felt bad again for taking the poor thing down with me.
He held his hand over the watch but not so that I wouldn't be able to see anymore. "It's just loose," he assured me. And, as I watched, the wonky sideways movement stopped.
"There," he said, leaning back. "You fixed it."
I couldn't have stopped the beaming smile breaking free had I wanted to.
He held out the back of the watch. "Go on."
I took it, hesitantly. "I don't want to mess…"
"You won't." He nodded, once. "Close it."
I bit my lip and put the lid back on, and with a wave of his hand, I could feel and hear it snap tightly back into place.
When I looked from the watch to him, the serene smile was back, and I could really, really relate. That felt… good.
He pointed at the watch. "Listen to it."
Doubtful that I would even hear a difference, even though I'd been wearing it all this time, I held it up to my ear. It was ticking happily, and while I might not have heard a difference, all was well in the world in that one moment. I smiled at him, again.
The moment ended, but didn't make way for a less nice one.
.
"Claire!" Peter suddenly said into the silence of the room. "I'm so sorry I'm late." He stood there by the entrance, taking in the view of… Gabriel and me sitting here, probably still smiling, and he very much looked like he didn't dare to hope, but had to anyway.
"We fixed my watch," I stated, proudly, grinning and putting it back on.
Peter smiled, his eyes flickering from me to Gabriel and back. "Good," he said, and it really was. "Ready to grab some lunch?"
Oh, right. We had planned on going out.
I stood. Then hesitated. Then turned to the table again.
I took a breath that I didn't want to let sound as deep as it actually was and looked at Gabriel. "Would you like to join us?"
The slow but liberating smile lit up his dark eyes, and I smiled back before turning to Peter to ask if that was okay.
Never before in my life had anyone looked at me with as much pride as Peter did in that moment, and I decided that it was time for me to take my first steps in that new world of ours, too.
.
TBC
