Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes.
As she watched Gabriel being totally fake-nice, Claire began to wonder how far off the grid they were.
Off the grid of society, or moreover, off the grid.
Big Green had been the prime example of what happened when a person stepped completely out of the box to find out that they were fundamentally hollow.
If there was a Company, she understood it. She empathized with its possible purpose. And she couldn't help but wonder, that if she made it out of this alive, maybe she could see what the Company was really about.
"Don't worry, I won't let you go." She heard him whisper to the shivering woman. Again, slavish gratitude. What a shame she didn't seem to realize he meant what he said completely.
They were illuminated in the headlights, and the snow was getting ridiculous, covering their shoulders already. She sat rigid in the seat, fuming and gripping the steering wheel tightly. Basically, she had been told to fetch, and she wasn't going to be his messenger or stupid side-kick.
"Thank you, thank you so much. I was so afraid." Something was wrong. The woman's voice was slurring, and Claire frowned and rolled down the window.
"Hey, is she going into shock?" she called out and the woman flinched as though she'd been shot. He gave her a glare that seemed to say she was the most unhelpful person on the planet and ignored her. "Well, not yet."
"I'm fine, really," the woman answered. Oh, she so wasn't, Claire thought.
"Aren't you brave?"
Barf, she thought. He gently put her in the backseat of the car and smoothed her bangs out of her face. Claire watched all this carefully in the rearview mirror, taking it in small doses, and found a bit of longing.
This was normal, of course. It was longing for something normal that she could not remember having. But then again, to get that, you'd have to actually to find someone to trust not to throw you in the gutter without warning.
He knocked on the window, and she jumped.
"You can keep her calm, can't you?"
"Yeah, no problem." Though she didn't see why that mattered to him. It pissed her off so badly that she could hardly talk.
"You're going to leave me alone with her?" the woman squeaked, and Claire held her hand to her forehead and sighed.
"Only for a few minutes. I'm right within shouting distance."
"It's not like I'm going to cut your head open, lady," she called back sweetly. "Unlike some people."
The woman blanched.
"Please, please, don't leave me with her!"
That tore it. "GET OVER YOURSELF!" she shouted, losing her temper. Losing herself. She nearly blanked out, for one moment, in rage and hurt at being the odd one out of this situation. She wasn't the stupid victim and she wasn't a serial killer, for god's sake. .
So she reached into the backseat to…she didn't know what because she didn't find out. He stopped her with invisible hands on her wrists.
"Easy there, tiger," he said, laughing. He made a face at the cowering woman, rolling his eyes, and indicated, with a circle motion around his ear, the universal signal that there was a crazy person in front of them. "I think I better take you with me."
He pulled her out of the car with those invisible, invasive hands, and she struggled, making the lady in the backseat nearly insane with fear.
"Let you think things over," he whispered into her ear. "Sorry, I apologize for little Claire here. She's slightly insane. Bad upbringing."
Claire struggled against nothing, and kicked out at him, missing his kneecap by inches. He, then, actually petted her, running a hand across her strewn hair.
That made her stop. Being dehumanized tended to do that to people.
"Knock it off with the crazy spiel. Speak for yourself, honestly."
"Of course, it's not like you'd ever do anything irrational. Like ripping a woman's eyes out in the backseat of the car."
"I was not going to rip anyone's eyes out. Okay, maybe, I was going to slap her. That was it. It's hardly…"
Gabriel watched her, his eyes taking on a curious expression. "When you're angry, your mouth makes the most…unusual impression. You have such an angelic face, then this monster comes out. I think I like it."
She counted to ten. "Yeah right. Monsters don't give love pats, they tear people's heads off. As you know. I mean, a nothing slap is hardly enough to qualify as irrational. Besides, she was being unreasonable."
Without warning, he...uh, he sparked. A kind of electrical current or something running down his arms. She backed away quickly, completely distracted.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Fine, fine," he said, waving her concern away. "Just tired."
"I'm not surprised. You don't sleep."
"Don't change the subject. You're sulking because the new pet liked me better."
Claire was appalled. "She's been through a trauma. And it's not a popularity contest."
She had another wave of deja-vu threaten to take her under, to drag her across the sharp edges of a shell of a life. Why was it like that? That her old life was sharp, cross, and seemingly full of danger. Compared to this, it should have felt like heaven.
"You know," she continued. "I think we should move on. Let this go. This Company, they'd be on their way. I'm sure massive storms appearing out of nowhere will catch their attention."
"I'm counting on that. They like setting traps. That's all they know, the outside of one. How to build the maze, the rat trap, and the pretty picture it makes. They don't know about the inner mechanics of actually being in the trap. And they won't be able to escape even if their worthless lives depend on it. They think they're smarter, better than us. Special in their normalcy."
She nodded, unsurprised; human nature and all those old platitudes. However, special or not, normal or not, didn't change the fact that people were dying all around her now with alarming frequency. She scuffed her shoes loudly on the ground. "And your idea of a trail of cheese is a trail of dead bodies."
"I'm cleaning up, aren't I? And don't worry about your trophy back there. She's not my type."
And he had a very specific type. She would know.
"Do you have to make it so cold?" Claire asked, deliberately changing the subject, rubbing her arms.
"You call this cold?" he asked, dismissive. "This is nothing. Winter can have much sharper teeth to it."
She was surprised when he reached back and took her hand. Curious about it. Wondering if he thought she'd make a break for it back to the car, or was just trying to keep her from losing her balance on the ice. It would make a nice picture of two people in love walking in the snow. Until she felt the stabbing pain of her hand being frozen solid.
"Now it isn't so bad, right."
She kept her grip out of spite, and yes, felt just a bit of a pull of his skin as he tried and finally managed to get his hand free. He wasn't as cruelly smooth about it as he had intended to be.
"You deserved that," she retorted.
"Maybe you should kiss it and make it better," he mocked. "Or maybe I'll just skip the kisses and go straight for the prize this time. It does hurt, you know."
"What did I ever do to you?" she asked. He raised an eyebrow.
"Besides from just being you, nothing. Nothing important anyway."
"I saw what you did to that woman. It was quick. I mean, you never give anyone an easy death but it wasn't drawn out for weeks. Every day. No. Every hour you remind me in some way that you're going to kill me. It has to be personal. Why?"
"Is this just your precious way of asking 'Why me, cruel world'? Why is it that you're looking a gift horse in the mouth when it can bite your face off?"
The way his mouth curved unsettled her. "Well, it will grow back," she said, going into war mode.
"I've given you something special, and still, you're completely clueless. It's sad, and it's pathetic, and it's annoying me. So it'd be in your best interest to shut up."
"Maybe." What's the fun in that? she thought. There was liberation in the presence of death. Evermore, she wanted to live, but if she couldn't and wouldn't, then she'd control how her last months, hours, moments were going to be spent. "But you didn't answer my question about how I pissed you off in a past life or something."
Gabriel stopped, and turned as if she had said the magic words. It bewildered her and made her afraid when he approached her, as if he had a secret he had wanted to tell for a very long time finally bursting at the seams to get out. As if he always had the answer to give, now if someone had only had the right question... that special question that would turn the lock.
"Funny, how you put it that way," he said, calmly. "It doesn't hurt to tell you this. We really did meet in another life. Lives, actually. Would you believe that I met you in New York before I ever set foot in Texas?"
"I guess?" she questioned, blankly, and hated him for making her feel empty and stupid. She suspected that was most of what his purpose was on this little confidential. "I wouldn't-."
"Know. Of course. Wouldn't you say that you feel reborn? From nothingness, from your lack of memory. It's a total reincarnation of your potential. This is your new life. All that where your memory ends--that was your old life. Now. Now, I'm your life."
A response like 'kinda sad that you have to take other's lives because you never had one, buddy' would have been perfect. But the fact was that his claim was true. It had begun and would end with him.
"I guess that explains why it's been such a spectacular life," she muttered.
He ignored her. "You wouldn't remember. Twice. Because from what I've seen, your father wouldn't have let you have that memory of your trip to New York with him. But you wouldn't have remembered me anyway. As I said, I was imperfect then."
"I seriously doubt that my father, whomever he may be, would have anything to do with you."
"Back then, you'd be right. He was there, however, about the people that we would become. I won't pretend to know why he thought it'd be a bright idea to bring you along. Maybe it was the wife's suggestion. A lot of schools were out for holidays. I know, since that's the time of the year when shop windows always get broken and have to be fixed, repeatedly... and maybe the Missus thought it be great if the two of you spent some quality time together. Trust me, I met the woman. The bubbly cliché is her down to the bone."
"My mother...you met her..."
"She's still alive. Anyway, that day, I was standing along the side of the street, minding my own business," he added, glaring at her look of suspicion. Claire was finding out that he responded more to her expressions than her words. As cruel and as strange as he was, he was a typical male. "I was just waiting to cross with the herd, when a small, blonde little girl ran past me and into the street. You were almost road-kill."
"I...oh no. Don't tell me," she said, not sold. Not sold at all. "I was almost road-kill until you heroically pulled me from the jaws of death. Am I right?"
"You are," he said simply. "Ironic, isn't it?"
"You... You would not do that. Not in this lifetime. Not in any lifetime."
"I'm hurt, Claire," he said, looking sarcastic, but at the same time, truly angry. He had clearly been saving that delusion for a more reactive audience. He clearly wanted her to be floored, amazed, and awed. "You don't trust me. If you can't trust me, then you can you trust?"
"Just because there's no one else, doesn't mean I trust you."
"I couldn't make that up if I tried. It's too perfect, too interconnected. I-."
"How old were you then?" she interrupted.
"Seventeen. Why?"
"I can't imagine you as..."
"What, a kid?" he asked, laughing. "No, I was never a kid. I was mature for my age. But I did save your life. I pulled you back onto the sidewalk, an inch from being hit myself."
"That's how I know you're lying," she protested.
"I'm not claiming heroics, Claire. That's your word, not mine. It was just a stupid knee-jerk reaction. That's not the point. The point is the pieces fitting together. The point is fate. You're right; usually, maybe I wouldn't have reacted. I also...well, back then, before, I was never...er, well-coordinated. I remember being surprised that I managed to catch you in time. And not every girl runs out into the street. Even three year olds know better nowadays."
"Oh, so that's how you know it was me," she said dryly.
"If I knew you then like I do know, it would have been that particular look of fear in your eyes that would have tipped me off. You always look so puzzled, like it could never happened to you, as if you could make that wall of cars part like the red sea and simply plow into the sidewalk full of people because their drivers couldn't bear to hit you. It's whenever..." he trailed off. "And yet you're as nervous as a cat. I would have recognized you."
"Uh, when you 'saved' me"--she made quotation marks in the air--"did you pull me by the hair?"
Now it was his turn to be puzzled, and he got this out of place deer-in-the-headlights look. "How did you..."
"Because it sounds like you to the bone," she replied, starting to believe his story. She couldn't believe she was actually taking his word for it, but his unrehearsed, openness made it be true. "So vice-versa. I would have recognized you, too."
"I. Doubt. That," he stated, fiercely, and it seemed like story time was over.
"So that's it? You pulled me out of traffic, where I probably wouldn't have been killed."
"Wrong. Your powers weren't working then. I can tell from looking at you. It only really started a few years ago." Then sullenly, after proving her wrong...or did he just need the idea that he had saved her life once to be true? Why would he even care about that?
"Okay. You saved my life...then. And left me on the side of the street?"
He grimaced. "No. I started to take you to the police station, or else, stop a cop and turn you over to him. And the entire time we were walking, you were going on about monsters. A man who came through the wall of the hotel you were staying at. I assume. All I really got was a wall and a man walking through one. Poor little girl thought her father was eaten alive by said monster--no such luck. If kids can technically come close to losing their minds, I'd say you were on the edge of that. I've seen that look before too. You were too hysterical to actually walk. So I detoured to a place I owned once, called the police from there, and tried to stop you from crying so people wouldn't stare at me through the window. Odd thing, though. The police never came. Your father did instead. Doesn't it make sense, now. At the time, I just assumed he was a cop himself."
"Well...considering...if this is true, wasn't I afraid of you? A three-year old would be, nowadays."
"I don't think you were."
"How did you stop me from crying?" she asked.
"I gave you a watch to look at. Nothing big deal. It was one that didn't work. Kids break things. But your father appeared, and ...he was grateful to me. Hell, the man even shook my hand," he said, his eyes wickedly delighted. "Said he owed me. I recognized him even with the glasses when I got the pleasure to renew...his acquaintance, but I was never sure he remembered me from then. He forgot about me."
"Are you sure it wasn't some other girl with some other dad?"
"He never asked how I knew you were his daughter. It's not like he wore a name tag, or was in the mood to introduce himself to me. I just had the ability to remember anything, and I did. Simple. I am so glad that I saved that wonderful ability of yours, too. It would have been such a loss."
"No," Claire said, amazed. "It wasn't on your mind, if that was before...you were actually trying to help, weren't you?"
Gabriel shook his head, never losing his excitement of sharing the secret, but never grasping what it meant about him, or what it would mean to her. For a moment, a brief sadness shot through her; even if it was still a total lie, that he would lie about something that inadvertently showed a ghost of humanity in him was a statement in itself. What a waste of a person, then, this whole affair was proving to be, from beginning to the inevitable end.
Of course, her mystery father would have forgotten because that's what people do, go on to handle the next hit, the next joy, the next thing. But here was a boy--then, at the time, now--who held on to the image of a handshake. The way he had looked down made her want to believe in him, in his chance to connect to people still, and that maybe underneath it all he didn't want to hurt her.
"It wasn't important what was on my mind. I was going by rote, endlessly, doing what a good Christian boy would do. It gives me hope and the idea that my life wasn't so meaningless in the beginning. Even then, I was helping my own evolution."
"You and I have very different ideas about what is important. What happened to you between then and now to make you kill the old you. Or was that person never real at all?"
"For once, you make a good observation. The secret is he never did exist. I've been able to be what I had to be in order to survive. The stack of cards changed and so did I."
The clearing still had fragmented figures of death lying in an almost ritualistic circle. She had the odd impression that they had moved somehow, or were moving still with limbs that shook with the wind.
"So twisted," she observed. "All of it. I don't understand something. I know I wouldn't forget a thing like that, people don't just forget things like that, no matter where they are in their lives, I-."
"Daddy dearest had that taken care of, precious. Now, about the bodies. Give me a hand, make yourself useful?"
"I don't think I can," Claire said and crossed her arms, wishing he hadn't said anything at all. "I won't be good at it." I won't be able to stand it, she thought.
"Won't do anything unless you're the best of the best, huh. Girl after my own heart. But really. I insist."
"What should I...what should I do?"
"Gather them in a heap. One on top of the other. Maximum surface area. Then I'll do the rest."
"You could totally do that now...You just want me to be a part of this."
"Totally," he mocked. "Now, I know, with the passing of time, numerous threats are empty threats. Quantity over quality. So if I have to threaten you again, we'll see if there can be two of you when I cut you right down the middle."
She bit her lip, felt a no-pain that was common to her, and any sadness or pity was burned away by hatred. She moved towards them--the faceless and charred--seemingly in slow motion. She moved up her sleeves to cover her hands because history would repeat itself, and she'd be hysterical and lose her mind in a way no healing could ever truly fix. How many times in her life would a clear coat of lies cover up a hurt she didn't even understand in herself? How can someone possibly ever come back from those little deaths which were more true than anything physical? At least blood comes out and you can get lost in the pain. With this hurt, she had clarity.
"-Can't mess up your manicure, right," he was hissing out. S. Something with an S, and a lie.
"I know you think you want what I have," she began, still feeling the twisted, old (still hot) arm of now sexless body through her pink jacket. "And I know you think you know me, or want me to be this caricature off of a movie so you don't have to feel anything when you kill me. Won't be much of a loss. But I might be a lie, myself. You may not want to know me, really. In fact, you don't want to...go there. And this ability? This wonderful, special ability...if I was allowed to live, I'd still be around when the sun freaking collapses on itself. One day, it will just be me. Somehow, someway, in a frozen world, with no one but myself. And I'm not even sure if I like myself. It might be hell to be there, just with myself, and that's why I haven't tried to run away. I'm not sure about me. But you...you hate yourself. Might for me...written in stone for you. It will be...terrible. I should let you have it, but it seems too cruel even for you. If you just can't stand the thought of someone having something you don't, fine, then kill me. But at least think...at least consider letting it die with me."
"Shut up, you self-righteous bitch."
Her arms were shaking with her emotional outpouring, but his cold tone felt like a slap across the face.
"How did you manage to make it all about you? You're a number on a list, sweetheart. Deal with it."
"Right, then," she said, her tongue feeling thick. "Freeze in hell."
"You think you can fool me into thinking you anything more than a shallow puddle. Just a plain reflection of everyone else around you. Just like your uncle, sad, little man he is. You all must be inbred or something. You're always someone else's shadow. Around your cheerleading friends, you're a cheerleader, and a misfit, a misfit. Around smarter company, you're a smart girl. Around either father, you are them, and I'm sure that goes double for the mothers. And around me, suddenly you have...fuck, for lack of a better word, a dark side. What other cliché can you be? Face it, Claire, you're boring."
That's not true, she told herself. Not true.
"Did I hurt you? Those fragile feelings of yours can't handle the fact that even death doesn't half want you."
"I'm finished with them," she said. That was true. They were all in a heap, like he had said to do. They were all dead. Not a single survivor. Or so she thought. So she hoped, dearly, that someone just wasn't unconscious.
"There's so much iron in bodies. Though you never think about it." He lifted his hand and something so...she didn't care. She was too hurt. "I'll bring all that iron and congeal it. Melt it. And since all this talk of freezing, it's appropriate to freeze them and then break them in a thousand little pieces. Then I'll add some fire, just for the hell of it."
She turned to go back to the car. She felt his eyes on her, but it didn't seem to matter. Not truly, anyway. She didn't know if she could say another word.
"No matter how many times you throw yourself off that ledge, you'll never find it. They don't make epiphanies for girls like you."
Barely a whisper. She kept walking.
In the car, he pulled the electrical-outlet trick again, only it was more subdued. He grimaced and glared at everything and nothing at once. Terry didn't seem to notice, sitting in the backseat and staring at her hands as if they were the most fascinating thing in the world.
"Are you alright?" Claire ventured, in a monotone voice. Instead of answering or acknowledging her, he suddenly turned in his seat to look at their captive audience.
"It'd surprise you, considering her intelligent conversation, but our Claire used to be a cheerleader."
She gripped the steering wheel tightly.
"I wouldn't have...pictured that," the woman in the backseat muttered, shifting uncomfortably. "I mean...from earlier, I guess she does remind me of those girls."
"What?" he asked.
"From high school." The woman shuddered, and seemed to blink. There was something wrong, in Claire's opinion, but there was the factor of shock. She had to keep repeating that one.
"That jumping up and down in one place, trying to figure out how to spell team without two e's…what is the word I'm looking for here, Terry? It's kind of a…"
"Vapid?" the girl slurred from the backseat. He snapped his fingers.
"Yes, a vapid waste of time. Brainless, even."
"How would you know?" she whispered, and saw his eyes sharpen when she took the bait. Why? No clue. Like he had said. "I doubt you've ever been to something that actually involved other people being happy."
His eyes lit up, and he leaned forward, becoming animated. She had taken the bait, and…well, this was a relationship, Claire thought, with some horror. To him, this was a relationship.
"Oh yes. Happy. That's always followed by dumb. Great choice of words. You should be in politics."
"Determination. Mental and physical endurance where you keep your body, mind, and voice in synch. Stamina. Awareness of your outer persona, and knowing no matter what the score is, you keep up the spirit. Being about to work in a team. Trusting the other members of the squad to catch you. Confidence. Seeing past the crowd and being able to capture the moment. Seeing past yourself and knowing it isn't all about you. Oh, and being able to do Round Off Double Back Hand Spring. Twice."
"That'll change the world," he said.
"You can verbally abuse me all you want. Your opinion doesn't matter."
"Even when you pleaded to know why this was personal-," he started. Terry hit the dashboard in a dead faint, face-first. "Fuck!"
She yelped, and almost plowed into a tree. It may have been her imagination but she thought the car stopped a little sooner than it should have. A little extra help. It could have been that she would have escaped since it would have been more than a love pat between the tree and the car. She was, ironically, buckled in. He, however, jerked fully in his seat, nearly hitting the window himself.
They both stared at the unconscious woman for a moment.
"Either she agreed with you…uh, very strongly, or she's dead. She was perfectly healthy a moment ago. Is this normal?"
"It's normal for a woman who was poisoned," he said casually, rubbing his neck.
"…You knew. The entire time we were driving."
"It's easy to hear the kidney starting to shut down. Good thing for her she was so drugged that she was withering in agony. That would have been tiresome. I was trying to give her last moments some…conversation, is all, and her last thoughts were about silly girls with pom-poms. I don't think she'll be getting into heaven now."
"Wait. A minute. You knew? Then what was with the screaming?"
"I wasn't. Screaming," he bit out. "I was surprised, temporarily. I thought she'd pass away quietly, but no, she's just ruined the carpet of the car."
"The entire time," she repeated, gaping at him. "I could have…"
"Congratulations, Claire. All those heroics were for a dead woman." He winced, and rubbed his neck some more. "From the start…" He answered her questioning look.
She leapt out of the car and ran towards the trunk, where the syringe was. She nearly slipped on a puddle of forming snow, and he laughed at her flailing figure through the window and winced again.
"I can change this," she whispered frantically as she dug through old chip bags from endless gas-stations and looked for the syringe. "Where is the thing?!" she yelled at him.
"Oh, that's specific. Where, oh where would I ever find one of those things? It's such a r-."
"Enough of t-that BS," she said, waving her arms around rather helplessly. "You know, that thing. The needle."
"In a haystack," he muttered, but got out of the car, moving his head from side to side and looking murderous. "That won't work."
"I don't care! Just, just, where is it?"
"It's about to be right under your nose. Pinning your lips together."
She held up her hands again. "Please. I'm asking. See? I'm begging you. Where is it?"
"I could use some more incentive on your part."
"I'll give you a dose of my blood to fix your neck."
"That's uninspired."
"You can be the hero. You can be the one who saved her life by gallantly handing me the syringe."
He laughed. "Oh, goody, that makes my life worth living," he said sarcastically but pulled out the needle. "I don't care about her. She's nothing."
"Then why?" she inquired, exasperated.
"Because it will hurt you so much when it doesn't work, that your last shot at being an individual person with that ability is ruined. And I'll savor the broken look on your face."
"We'll just see," she said, through a haze of numbness, and quickly took the syringe and stabbed blindly into her arm. She hurried to the backseat door and pulled it open. Or tried. He was holding it shut.
"Beg some more. I kind of like it."
She was at a lost. "I don't know what else to say. You've proven your point. Anything I have to give, you can just take."
This was a new smile. A kind of secret smile from him that his victims in their last moments saw. It was a mix of simple 'I'm better than you can ever be' with 'Why do you make me hurt you so?' It wasn't an altogether human smile, though laced with primitive human drives. She had to admit that she had been hoping to talk him out of it, to talk him back into…something better, but now she knew for sure that she was fooling herself.
She lost hope.
The door swung open. She couldn't bear to look at him, but stuck the syringe into the young—so young, not much older than she was—woman's arm. A moment passed. Then several more, and Terry lay in the seat, her head still flat against the dashboard like a crude mimicry of a discarded doll. A cruel joke, to die without a shred of dignity, to die trying to be polite to a murderer. It wasn't as bad as the naked woman lying in the dirt with ice gathering in her eyes but it was too close.
Claire reached over and gently pulled her into a sitting position.
"And…nothing. Nada," he said. "You can't always part the Red Sea, pr-."
Then Terry sputtered.
"And sometimes you do," Claire muttered. Not to be sarcastic in any way, though that's exactly the way Gabriel took it. Or how...t was on the tip of her tongue. Almost.
"Where—oh, I'm sorry, I must hav-"
He reached past her, and Claire knew he was going to kill the girl just because. Things happened in quick succession.
She leapt at him, instinctively, and got her arms looped around his neck before she really planned for it. Around his very sensitive neck. He let out a hiss of pain and actually stumbled backward, seeming hesitant about pushing her off completely since she had a very good grip. This was familiar.
It was so familiar it was painful but she forced herself to maintain her grip, her life suddenly cleaved in two, and the bridge between those two parts was shaking and threatening to break forever if she didn't continue.
So she held on.
"Get--I'm going to tear you apart!"
She kicked the back of his knee hard and he did fall. On top of her, but he was down. She added pressure, and he cried out. Instead of trying to get up, he pushed down on her body, with the extra force of telekinesis, and she couldn't even get air to scream.
Then came the burning, peeling, searing heat. It seemed like his body, his being, was starting to glow a sickly orange, and somehow, then, she found the air. She shrieked, and tried to push him up without avail.
Vaguely, she saw their car speed off, weaving dangerously at first but then gaining momentum. Oh yeah. Vaguely, through the fire of the pain. The keys had still been in the ignition.
Smart girl, and being the one left behind…
Run.
"Oh God," she whispered. He was over her, his knees digging into her side, holding her arms above her hand, and she knew his name. "Sylar."
He froze and stared at her. Their eyes met, and she saw nothing in his but that old insatiability that lurks in the gaze of sharks.
"About time," Sylar said. What more could there be?
"Not ever," she said.
"Excuse me? What kind of last words are those?"
"For a minute, you had me. You won't know when, but you had me. I didn't want to see it because of what you are, because of who I don't want to be. I was..." Sylar didn't seem to understand, as he narrowed his eyes in confusion. "For a moment. I guess that was just a reflection. And never ever. Even if you were the last man on earth."
His confusion melted away into a blank state where he simply stared at her. She had the idea that she had been his only in that regard, as well. It was just something so self-absorbed about him that she didn't believe that he would honestly notice a person who liked him. Or ruin it. That she had sex with him…a man who had killed a girl right in front of her, a girl he had mistaken for her…was a thing of ruins in itself. It made perfect sense why she had caught his attention amongst his cult of self and endless fatalism.
He was determined to fail. What can be safer than an already messed up relationship? And damn him for using her that way. And her, for letting herself be used.
"Ah. That's...expected. Is that..."
"I know. So."
"I'm disappointed the game ended this early."
"Just kill me."
"I don't think I will," he said cautiously, as though feeling around for a trick. "No. Not yet. You don't get to decide, I do. Me."
Hurt, hurt, hurt. "Then I'll be as good as dead. If you think I'm boring, I'll be..." Wow, as weak sounding in the future as now.
"I was boring once," he said in a tone of quiet confession. It was spoken in such an intimate way that she almost lost the snapshot of her memory. Of him holding a kicking, screaming girl up against a locker.
"I think I'll kill you when you're interesting again. How's that?"
"Not much incentive, there."
"If you ever want to be free of me, then you'll work on it. Besides, you want to see your family again, before you die. I want to see them again. I want them to see you die. Can't you just...give me that?"
Claire was quiet.
"You're one of the few victims who I can see the full effect of my existence when everyone breaks over the loss. I'm going to show them how it works, how life really is, and I'll win. So you're going to wait for me, and you're going to calm down. I'll try to...preserve you a little better along the way."
"To get attention. Using me," she said, burning up inside. "All this pain, all this torture over wanting to be noticed."
"Not quite. But. I'm glad you have such great warranty." He got to his feet, stared down at her a little longer, and then looked in the direction of where Terry drove in a fury. "She's coming back."
"Uh-huh," Claire said, doubting that, and she got up herself, shaking.
"From the sound of it, she's coming to run us over."
"I can't bla-."
He passed out. Just fell over, in a dead faint, and she screamed in shock. He hit the ground with a painful thud and lay there, motionless. Claire couldn't believe it. She either had to be dead or dreaming.
She edged closer, and saw his chest rising and falling, and then noticed the pale currents running up and down his neck. It was the new ability, and she had the feeling it had been too much for him. He had gotten too upset, too angry with her. As a result, he had lost focus.
She couldn't believe her luck. Except that it wasn't luck at all. She still only remembered him. Other things were along the edge of that snapshot but for now, she just remembered Sylar and that dead girl.
What a hero she turned out to be.
A horrible roaring sound filled the air, and she spun around, almost slipping on the ice again. Sylar had been right. The girl was coming back. The car lights blinded her as the truck cut the curve of the road like a knife and headed straight for them.
She had no time to get him out of the road.
Claire looked at him lying there, and considered it. But no. She couldn't. Even though he deserved it entirely, to die by being hit by a car. Average as can be. But he was just lying there, and he just looked so indescribly...
So she started to run towards the oncoming car and hoped her plan would work.
Credit: 'I'm your life' is from Metallica. It's from Sad but True, I think.
Also, for Gabriel saving young children's lives, you should check out sinemoras09's Maria. Tis a great look at that type of situation.