Claire Bennet
Peter Petrelli's Apartment
Claire stepped out of the shower to find her grandmother sitting casually in the dining area.
"Hello, Claire-dear," she said with cold formality.
"If you're looking for Peter, he's out trying to get Elle acquainted with the real world or something," Claire mumbled uneasily. "You know about Elle, right?"
Angela nodded. "Of course, and I completely support the relationship. It only makes sense after his last two girlfriends died that he would take up with someone he didn't actually like."
After first, Claire was going to that Peter and Elle weren't really together... then she realized what Angela had actually said. "He never told me that," she whispered, feeling a little guilty to have wallowed in her own pain while Peter was enduring silently.
"Well, he tends to be a greedy when it comes taking his share of the guilt, if you hadn't noticed," Angela clipped. "But you should have noticed that when he opened his home to two relative strangers."
"We're family," Claire said simply.
"And, now that he's gotten your birth-father killed, your family is a little smaller," Angela replied coldly, but her own pain more than apparent in her eyes.
"I..."
No doubt ashamed to let anything resembling real emotion show, Angela quickly changed the subject. "Have you been burning bacon in here?" she asked, nose crinkled in disgust.
The smell was, of course, the lingering scent of her youngest son being fried to a crisp internally. It was a smell that never seemed to completely fade after one of Peter and Elle's sessions, at least to Claire, but Angela didn't need to know all that. "Actually, with everything he's seen lately Peter's stopped eating meat," Claire replied, realizing the full extent of that statement for the first time. "He does all the cooking, so we have too, I guess."
Angela nodded and cast her eyes over the various herbs and spices that had been left sitting on the counter. "I see he's gone back to his old experiments with curry," she sniffed.
Claire smiled slightly. "Yeah, he's really good at it. I was honestly expecting he would have made a pasta or something."
"Hmm," Angela pursed cruelly, "I would have thought you would have abandoned those Italian stereotypes when you realized you were one of us."
At this point, Claire was understandably tired of Angela's remarks and decided not to deal with her anymore. "You know," she said, turning to leave, "I think I'll just go find Peter for you."
"Wait, a second," Angela called after her, "I've got something important to tell you."
Claire spun around to face her. "What?" she demanded.
"Keep your temper," Angela cautioned.
Claire quietly choked on her rage. "Is that it?"
"No," Angela replied simply. She unfolded her arms and relaxed her posture slightly. "The world is going to get considerably worse for us." Claire was about to speak, but Angela cut her off. "I know you think you've had difficulties before, but what's coming will make those days seem like a picnic in the park."
Claire didn't much care for having her problems minimized like that, but she supposed that was just part of dealing with Angela.
"Right now it seems to be very important to Peter to fill his house with tiny blonde women and maybe he truly believes he can protect you," Angela continued, "but you need to look at Peter's past. He gets people killed, especially the people he loves."
"He saved my life," Claire replied bitterly.
"And he got your father killed," Angela shot back. "Just like he got Simone killed and his father and that girl from Ireland. And if you put your faith in him, you and Elle will both end up just as dead."
Claire kept her sad eyes on her grandmother, saying nothing.
"Now, I know you think I'm the villain in all this, but I'm only looking out for you," Angela cautioned, the weariness in her voice beginning to show. "All I've ever wanted is to protect my family. When you come to realize that, come to my house. I will look after you myself."
And then she was gone, leaving Claire alone in the apartment.
Molly & Mohinder
Suresh's Apartment
No sooner was another box of files successfully packed up and sealed over than Mohinder tore open the one next to it and began pouring through the contents.
"Matt wants us to leave as soon as he gets back from work," Molly cautioned, quite used to being the adult in the situation.
"I know, I know," Mohinder agreed, still tearing through his records.
Since they had reluctantly agreed to move into Fortress Petrelli, Mohinder had been obsessed with finding what could possibly make him so valuable to Angela Petrelli; so far he was coming up empty.
Logically, it had to be something he knew; he didn't have any abilities beyond knowledge and experience. But since the Company had full access to his father's research in genetics and his own work with the Virus, he couldn't begin to guess what that could be.
"It's just..." Mohinder continued. "Do you know have difficult it is not to know what you know?"
Molly screwed up her face in confusion. "What?"
Mohinder gave a slight smile, Molly really was a child after all. "The woman who is going to protect us... she wants something I know. It's apparently very important to her... but I don't know what that is. I think that if I did, I feel a good deal better about this whole thing."
Molly walked over to him and smiled. "You already know."
Now it was Mohinder's turn to look confused.
"It's always the same thing. What makes us special, the Virus, the Cure... it was always the same solution," Molly explained. "Something in our blood."
Mohinder's eyes went wide. "Of course."
Micah Sanders
New Orleans, Louisiana
Micah seemed to spend all his time sitting on Nana's couch. He knew Nana and Monica (and even Damon) deserved to be treated better than he had managed lately, but, given his circumstances, everyone was very understanding; almost painfully so. No one expected him to be okay.
Micah leafed despondently through one of his father's old Justice League comics. He wasn't reading it, he couldn't even focus on the pictures, but it brought his mind back to brighter times... before Jessica or Linderman or his Grandfather had come into their lives, when it was just him and his Mom and Dad.
DL was on the porch going over the orders for his next few jobs, Micah approached him slowly. "Hey, Dad," Micah began cautiously, "can I ask you something?"
DL gave his son a broad, reassuring smile, welcoming the interruption. "Micah, you can ask me anything in the world."
Micah nodded, but still proceeded nervously. "Can Superman outrun the Flash?"
"Oh, you wanna get philosophical," DL laughed.
"I'm just curious," Micah shrugged.
"Well," DL reflected, "Superman can run pretty fast and he can fly even faster, but... no, he can't outrun the Flash. No one can."
"Really?" Micah plodded excitedly.
"Absolutely," DL confirmed. "See, Superman has a whole lot of powers, he's the best superhero there is, but Flash... he's just got the one thing. He's just fast. And when you can only do one thing and the guy next to you can do ten, what do you have to do?"
"You have to be the best person in the world at that one thing," Micah volunteered.
DL nodded. "Right, you've got to practice it all the time, figure out new ways of using it. Like the Flash, he says to himself 'okay, if I can run fast, then maybe I can think fast and maybe I can fight fast,' and then maybe it doesn't matter so much that he isn't as strong as Superman or as smart as Batman, 'cos he knows his edge."
"Wow," Micah smiled up at his father. "You really know a lot about superheroes, Dad."
"Well, that was gonna be my thing," DL smiled. "When I was your age, I'd skip lunch for weeks just so I'd have money to go to the comic shop. I read all the books: Batman, Spider-Man... In fact," DL reflected, "I think I still have box of old Justice Leagues somewhere around here."
Micah's eyes lit up. "Really!?"
"Oh, I think so," DL nodded. "But if I give them to you, I don't want to catch you putting them in plastic and trying to 'preserve the value,'" DL told him sternly. "You better read every last one of 'em."
Micah laughed and threw his arms around his father, bouncing with anticipation at the thought of a new box of old comic books.
Micah was brought back to present by the sound of someone knocking at their door. He walked over to to investigate and found his Nana speaking cautiously to the man on the other side of the glass.
"...no, I'm sorry, but we haven't seen any kind of dog around here lately," she said, warmly yet firmly.
"Well, do you think I could just leave you one of these fliers?" the man drawled kindly. "My little girl won't stop crying and I promised her I'd find that dog..."
Micah looked at the face on the other side and squinted. He'd seen it before, but he wasn't sure where. "Hey, do I know you?"
Sylar flashed him a warm smile. "You know, I think I did see you and your parents once."