Chapter 1 – Wait. What?
"Fuck you, too!" Claire snapped, slamming her hand down on the hood of the taxi that had come centimeters away from grotesquely fracturing the tibia and fibula of her right leg – which not only would have ruined her new jeans, but would also have made her even later than she already was. Mohinder did tend to give her leeway, but she didn't really want to lean on that. Family connections, world saving, and a little casual threatening with a handgun may have bought her an internship at the Company as his lab assistant, but she did want to learn from him. And that was best done when she wasn't reminding him of exactly why it was that he let so much slide.
Interestingly, attempting to take revenge on the man who shot your father in the face – no matter how much, objectively speaking, your father deserved it – often resulted in lingering tension.
Juggling the lattes and croissants that would have been the taxi's real victims, Claire waded upstream through the Reed St. pedestrian rush. Facing this kind of crowd, she briefly let herself wish that she were back in the comfort of Odessa, where good Texan courtesy would have prevented the elbowing she was experiencing. Hell, she'd even settle for Costa Verde, where Californian personal injury lawyers did much the same.
Thankfully, the crowd parted just long enough for Claire to dart into the entranceway of the building she was headed to, finally escaping the sticky heat of late spring in New York City. Mounting the stairs to the laboratory-nee-art studio, Claire mused on other means of bypassing ingrained New York rudeness. Maybe if she had a more useful power. Like teleportation. Or six arms to elbow back with. Jesus, what was she going to use immortality for anyway?
One frighteningly unsafe looking elevator ride and two dingy staircases later, Claire passed in front of the hall windows of the loft. Mohinder, hunched over his laptop, was visible inside. So was Maya. As the Company's third favorite means of mass destruction, Mohinder had been working extensively with Maya to study her ability and isolate the toxic biological agents for over two years now.
Claire tapped lightly on the glass of the door; Maya glanced up and flashed her typical wide grin at Claire. Mohinder – preoccupied as usual – would have to suffer the consequences.
Dropping her keys on the table near the door, Claire slung her messenger bag across her shoulders, and crossed the ever more scuffed depiction of Peter's explosion to join Maya. Silently, she handed off a latte to the older woman before focusing her attention on Mohinder's research. Eyes darting over the data patterns she couldn't quite parse, but that he nonetheless was skimming through effortlessly, Claire asked conversationally, "Any progress?"
As expected, Mohinder jerked, and spun his stool away violently. Okay, so she didn't want to lean on Mohinder's continuing apprehension toward her. That didn't mean she couldn't get a small – yet vicious – thrill out of teasing him in these little ways.
Refocusing on her, Mohinder glared. "Claire."
"Good morning, Doctor. Would you like a latte?" she asked innocently.
Maya, not entirely practiced at games of subterfuge, even after years with the Company, laughed.
"Oh, Doctor Suresh," she began, and a flicker of appreciation of just how Maya pronounced his name melted the glare from Mohinder's face. "You really should be more careful. What if it had not been Claire? What if it had been," an earnest, angry look overtook her beautiful features, "What if it had been Sylar?"
Mohinder chuckled and looked at her affectionately. "I don't think my situation is quite that dire, yet. Besides, isn't that why you are here?"
Claire quietly rolled her eyes, and handed off his latte and croissant. Mohinder momentarily stopped making eyes at Maya to take them, frowned, and looked back.
"What? You wanted a mocha?"
"Why are you here?"
"I... work here."
"Today is the twentieth,"he reminded her, enunciating carefully for the slow. "You have a meeting with Bob and Angela today. At the Kirby building."
"... Did I know this?"Claire very honestly couldn't recall a thing about it. Coming up on finals – on finals that she cared about and that meant something to her future, anyway – she tended to lose time. And not in the fun, Hiro-sponsored way.
Maya nodded decisively. "Yes. Mrs. Petrelli called when you were here,"she explained, her accent rounding the words. "You told Doctor Suresh and wrote it down in your pink planner for days."
Claire rummaged through her bag and found that Maya was right. Great. She was senile at and late for a meeting with her grandmother. Luckily, there was a solution. Circled, in sparkly pink ink, was the name of the other attendee for the meeting: Peter. The fact that they were both supposed to be there was interesting, enough so to make Claire pause between flipping open her phone and hitting speed dial three. Given recent events, it had been a long time since anyone at the Company or elsewhere had trusted Peter.
What changed Angela's mind? And why was she dragging her erstwhile granddaughter into it?
Shrugging, Claire hit the number two and waited while the phones connected.
"What?" answered an irritable voice.
"Nathan?" Claire asked.
The voice sighed. "No. It's me. Claire, where are you?"
"I'm great, actually. How are you?"she smarmed back. "I'm at Mohinder's lab. Obviously."
"Right."
The connection beeped closed and Peter appeared before her. He looked good, in a consumptive kind of way. He was washed out and dark circles outlined his eyes, but his long hair had been washed recently and he was wearing clean, if darkly colored, well-fitting clothes. He seemed to be recovering.
In the past, when Peter teleported Claire somewhere, he would take her by the hand or wrap an arm around her shoulders. But this time, almost hesitantly, he simply grasped her elbow; then he rewrote space and time around that touch.
Claire always tried to perceive the moment when somewhere or somewhen became a different time/place altogether, but it was impossible. It wasn't a matter of blinking and missing it. Eyes open, straining to see that shift, she still lived in moments, not moments between. She would never see what Peter or Hiro saw.
Then they were in the executive office of the Kirby building. It was as expansive and austerely outfitted as ever, the high ceiling and expensive furnishings kept in much the same order Linderman had kept them in. Angela sat primly on the couch, trying to give off an air of intimacy, while Bob paced somewhat fretfully behind her. He really did not do well when left alone with her.
Noticing them, he straightened and went to greet them, "Ah, Claire. How good to see you, again. I'm afraid we had a miscommunication about the time of this meeting."
Angela looked up from an examination of her manicure to smile frostily at her. "I'm glad you could make it, dear. It's been a long time since I've seen you. It seems that your studies have you quite overwhelmed."
Claire bristled and crossed her arms defiantly. "My studies are not overwhelming me."
This was the moment when Peter's restraining touch on her arm would come, reminding her that no matter how many times Angela tried to end the world, she was family. She waited a beat. It didn't come. Disturbed, her next, very rude words stuck in her mouth.
Her grandmother, as usual, took advantage of her momentary faltering to conclude, "Then you have spare time."
Bob guided Claire to sit. He picked up a manila folder from the coffee table, and thrust it at her before resuming his pacing.
"As Angela was saying... We're glad that we can count on you for this very important mission, Claire. Now, Peter has already been briefed," Claire glanced over to where Peter was slouching on the couch; she hadn't even noticed him move over there. "So, he can fill you in on further details. We want you to be as comfortable with this as you possibly can be, so if you have any questions, don't worry at all about asking."
"But," her grandmother cut in, "this mission is time sensitive. We need you to get working right away."
Claire shrugged. Her finals were finished. All she was doing now was tweaking the citations on her last paper before e-mailing it in and doing coffee runs for Mohinder. And beyond that, lately she'd been falling into a sense of crushing normalcy, feeling helplessly stifled by the mudanity of her goals. Shaking up her routine, actually using her ability for some good instead of an excuse not to buy a colander, was certainly not something she would be turning down this century.
"Okay, then, what is it?"
Bob glanced over to Peter, as if expecting him to chime in to persuade Claire about something. Peter, however, remained slumped on the plush, leather couch, staring at a piece of paper on the coffee table. Angela, for her part, was watching Peter – looking progressively more satisfied.
"Claire, do you remember a man named Claude Raines?" Claire snapped her attention from the strange Petrelli interplay, and back to Bob. Her memories of "Uncle Claude" seemed odd and slightly unfamiliar, now that she knew he was both her father's old partner for bagging and tagging specials and that he had once thrown Peter off a building in a fit of pique. Trying to recall his role in her childhood always led to the discomfiting sensation that her life was a game she hadn't been told the rules for.
She nodded, and Bob continued, "Before he became Noah Bennet's partner, he worked in the Parisian devision with a man named Haram. Their final case together was tracking a serial killer by the name of Anya Fusor."
He stopped pacing long enough to reach out, and flip the manila folder in her lap open. The first sheet was a typical mission report, with a bad quality, black and white photograph pinned to it. A woman, hollow eyed, sharp-jawed and yet smooth skinned, looked back at her.
"She, and her partner, seduced and murdered their way through French high society for over ten years. However, she apparently held no loyalty for her partner. When Claude and Haram caught up with her, in 1990, she murdered her partner as a distraction to get away.
"Finally, when Haram was not able to contain Fusor, he got her to turn her power on herself, killing her."
Claire blinked in surprise. She hadn't ever heard of anyone being vulnerable to their own ability before. That's how her own bio-mom had survived the fire Claire was supposed to have died in.
"So... what was her power?"
"Dehydration," Bob said blandly. "To the point of disintegration. She somehow absorbed, or fed off of the water she drained, keeping her youthful appearance."
As exciting as all this back story wasn't, Claire wondered exactly what it had to do with her. "Okay. And the mission is...?"
He nodded at the case file in her lap, "Page four. Her daughter."
A much sharper, color photograph of a harshly attractive young woman was pinned next to a report that Claire's high school French recognized as a surveillance log. The date was recent, and the text indicated some sort of extravagant function at a châteaux.
"Like mother, like daughter. Clémence Fusor has also been targeting high society. Working alone, she goes after newlywed couples, stalking them for weeks at a time before kidnapping, and eventually killing them."
"Four months ago," said Angela, picking up the story and finally looking away from her intense study of her son. "René's operatives had a chance to capture Fusor, but lost track of her. She eventually resurfaced on the North Shore."
"Page seven, Claire," Bob instructed, and Claire dutifully obeyed. That page held a piece of very stiff, very fine paper elaborated with personalized calligraphy. It was an invitation to a party. "As you can see, on the next page, she has already killed here. Alana and Julian Andres were perfect victims for her. They liked to travel impulsively, making their disappearances are easy to account for. The Holverwells, Grace and Marc, just went on a holiday to Bimini."
Claire turned another page. Grace and Marc seemed young, only a few years older than Claire, preserved by arrogance and money. Both were throughly coiffed, giving stilted smiles to the camera. "Current information leads us to believe that they are both alive, and probably being held within their own home. We need you and Peter to get Fusor's attention, keep her from moving on to new victims or leaving the North Shore altogether."
"Why us?" Claire asked.
"She's more selective this time," Peter broke in. Startled, her eyes snapped to his. They were shuttered, lonely. "She's only going after members of the Social Register."
"I don't know what that means," she said, holding his gaze.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Angela straighten, clearly ready to finally get down to the meat of the issue. She motioned to Bob, and he moved out of Claire's peripheral vision. Claire heard him pick up the telephone receiver on the desk and ask for someone to enter over the intercom.
Peter leaned forward, sliding partially off the couch, to take her hand. "You don't have to do this, Claire."
"You don't," Bob interrupted. "But you are the two people least likely to disintegrate. And Peter is the only unmarried person affiliated with the Company on the Social Register."
Claire frowned, "So, wait. How am I going to get on the Social Register, then? And what even is it?"
"It's simply a list of all the well bred families of this country, dear," Angela said dismissively. "And–" The door clicked open, interrupting her. A sharply dressed, but very nervous man entered the room carrying a briefcase. Between the man, Bob and Angela's own suits, and Peter's typical clean lines, Claire was beginning to feel a little under-dressed in her jeans and NYU t-shirt. Angela smiled at the man, and finished her thought, "And we are going to take care of that problem right now."
The man motioned to Peter and Claire. "These two are the applicants?"
Angela and Bob nodded. Peter looked again at the paper on the table, before quietly affirming, "Yes."
"I guess that makes you my sponsor, huh?" Claire grinned at him.
Peter smiled at her slightly. "It does."
Without looking at either of them, the man sat down on the couch next to Peter and opened his briefcase. He took out an embossing stamp and an official looking form, and looked to Angela.
"You have their birth certificates?"
"Of course." Another manila folder, one Claire had not noticed, was retrieved from the desk and handed to the man. He took it gingerly, sighing with self-loathing as he put the file into his brief case. He paused a moment, and closed his eyes.
When he opened his eyes, a deep blue color, he fixed Claire with a penetrating look. "You are Miss Claire Bennet, correct?"
Claire nodded, amused by the self-importance of America's elite. "Yes, I am."
He turned to Peter, "And you are Peter Petrelli?"
"Yes."
"Being that you are both over the age of eighteen, I can move to waive the twenty four hour waiting period, if you wish it."
Claire shrugged, glancing at Peter. Angela said the mission was time sensitive. "Sure. I mean, yes, we would like that."
The look of self-loathing made another, brief appearance. The man glared ferociously down at his papers, and shook it off.
"Then I need for both of you to sign the contract you have between you, and I will waive the waiting period and officiate."
Startling Claire with the sudden movement, Angela presented Claire with a black lacquered fountain pen.
Winking at Peter, who stared, and then swore softly to himself, Claire leaned over the table and signed – excessive curlicues absent for once. Leaning back, she flipped the pen in her hand and offered it to Peter.
He hesitated. Angela circled around from behind Claire to stand behind Peter. She leaned down, hands grasping Peter's shoulders, and whispered something into his ear. Straining, Claire thought she could make out, "... what you've always wanted."
Jerkily, he nodded, leaned over. And signed.
Working swiftly, the man took the contract from then, added his own signature, and embossed it with the press. Then he signed the waiver and embossed it.
Finally, he asked, "Do you affirm that you are aware of the nature of the contract that you have entered into and have done so willingly, without any coercion by outside parties?"
This was all beginning to sound rather ominous. Nonetheless, Claire had only one answer "Yes."
Again, Peter hesitated, and Angela's grip on his shoulder tightened. Hoarsely, he said, "Yes."
The man drew himself up, finally looking like an official of the law rather than a cowed toady. "Then, by the power vested in me by the great state of New York, I now pronounce you husband and wife."
All of the oxygen that had ever entered Claire's lungs, bloodstream, or general vicinity disappeared in a single instant.
The judge glanced between Peter and Claire, confused. "If you want, you can kiss."
Claire shook her head, trying to rid it of the ringing that filled it. She opened her mouth and closed it and then opened it again.
"Wait. What?"
