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A Sylar/Claire, Buffy/Spike, Willow/Tara, Xander/Anya fic.

Chapter Four.

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Disclaimer: See Ch. 1.

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A/N: Thanks for the great reviews, I'm glad you guys are still liking this story!

I'll respond to some reviews here:

kodo-chan: Thanks for the review! In response to why Claire would be going out after being attacked by a vampire ... she can't be hurt, and she knows that. When the vampire attacked her, she was more annoyed than afraid. I won't be writing her as afraid of the vampires, since she knows that they can't hurt her.

Gamebird: Thanks for the review! Claire doesn't necessarily see them as witches or spell-casters, but she does believe that they have power, and wants to find out what kind of power it is. She's willing to grasp at anything at this point, if it might help her to get home. In regards to how you feel Sylar would act around the vampires ... without giving too much away, I'll just say that he's not going to be confused by them, or doubt his powers. He's intrigued by them, but he won't 'want' their powers for himself, 'cause he doesn't see them as very useful. I'm glad you're still enjoying the story!

ravynsprt: Thanks for the review! I'm glad you're still liking this story! I haven't decided if Sylar will try another method to kill vampires ... it might be interesting to see him sort of experiment with his powers where they are concerned.

aclassicistkitten: Thanks for the review! And for pointing out the hair thing. I went back and watched "Hush", and you're right, Tara's hair is more blonde than brown in this season, so I'll have to go back and change that in the last chapter. Nice catch! I'm glad you're still enjoying the story.

Everyone else: Thanks for the reviews, and for favoriting/alerting this story. I'm happy that you're still liking it!

Alright, that's enough out of me, let's get on with it!

I hope you guys like this, I know I'll love writing it.

As always, please read and review, I live for feedback!

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Claire stood from her seat on the swing, turning fully around to stare at the man behind her. She tilted her head slightly, trying to figure him out. "I'm sure I can take care of myself," she told him.

Spike grinned, stepping around the swing and taking her in. He'd ditched the basement dweller and his sex fiend, and was enjoying the night life. When he'd seen her sitting on the swing, his first instinct had been to plunge right in. If the stupid chip in his brain didn't prevent him from actually having fun with the little chit, he'd have done more than just say hello. Even though most of the people in this town had no idea of the things that went bump in the night, there was still an unwritten rule about wandering around at night - by yourself. Thus, she must be new in town.

"With no one around to protect you from the things that go bump in the night?" Spike taunted, stepping closer to her. Maybe he couldn't hurt her without feeling a severe amount of pain himself, but he could at least freak her out. Small pleasures ... these days, anyway.

Claire stood her ground, though her nostrils flared and her posture stiffened. There was something off about this guy. "Listen, creepo, you can take your little scare-fest on the road. I'm not interested." She turned her back on him, prepared to run if need be, but as she turned around, something else blocked her way.

Claire's eyes widened, looking up at the sight before her. She'd never seen anything like it. It was pale, bald, and grotesque-looking. Its face was deformed - somewhat like the man from the other night - but worse. Claire barely had time to draw in a breath before the thing descended upon her, fangs latching onto her neck.

It fed briefly, before pulling away to snap her neck.

Spike blinked a couple times, watching the scene before him in shock. He'd heard stories, but he never thought he'd actually see one. The other vampire tilted its blood-covered face at Spike for a moment, before carrying on, running towards a thicket of trees.

"Well, that's something you don't see every day," Spike commented, looking down at the dead girl sprawled on the ground. He was about to leave when he saw the strangest thing ... the neck - the one he'd seen get broken - twisted, and put itself back into place. Next, he heard a groan, and all of a sudden, the girl was pulling herself up.

"Fricken vampires," she grumbled, seeing her brand new shirt now ruined with blood. She would have continued her rant, but she saw that the other man was still standing there, and staring at her with a confused expression on his face. "What, it didn't eat you?"

Spike moved forward, reaching out to grab her arms. "What are you?" he asked her, staring heavily into her face.

Before Claire could answer, another girl shouted at them. "Spike! Back off!"

He turned his head, Claire poking her own over his shoulder to see who else had appeared.

"So much for not being able to hurt people anymore," the girl commented, a wooden stake in her hand. "Step away from the girl." To Claire, she said, "It's gonna be okay."

Spike took his hands off Claire's shoulders, holding them up in defense. "Hey, easy there, Slayer. I didn't do this."

Buffy scoffed. "Yeah, right. I don't know how you managed to work around that chip, Spike, but you've had your last drink." She held up the stake for emphasis, and Claire decided now would be a good time to stick her nose in.

"Um, not to get in the middle here, but ... he's not the one who attacked me," she pointed out.

Spike smiled triumphantly. "See?"

Buffy narrowed her eyes at Claire. "Then who did?"

Claire shrugged, eyeing the stake in Buffy's hand. Could stakes even kill vampires? She didn't know. "Some really weird-looking thing. It ran away."

Buffy looked between Claire and Spike.

Spike nodded in agreement. "It was an older vampire, Buffy. Like your old friend The Master, only much older."

Buffy felt an involuntary shudder of fear at that revelation, and her mind immediately jumped to the earthquake that had hit Sunnydale the other night. She turned her attention to Claire. "And he just left you alive?"

Claire wasn't sure how to respond to that, as her abilities weren't exactly supposed to be public knowledge, but for some reason, the one called Spike spoke for her.

"I scared him off," Spike lied. "Figured if I can't enjoy a tasty treat, why should anyone else?"

Claire furrowed her brow at his words, as well as the fact that he was lying to cover for her.

Buffy didn't look as though she entirely believed him, but as Claire didn't contradict his story, the other blonde girl let it go. "Do you need help getting to a hospital?" Buffy asked her.

Claire shook her head. "No, I'll be fine. Really, it's just a scratch."

Buffy shook her head. "I doubt that, I've seen what these things can do. Why don't you let me have a look at it?"

Claire brought a hand up to her neck, hiding the fact that there was no longer a bite mark there. "Really, I'm fine." Her cell phone - which Sylar had also purchased that morning - began buzzing in her pocket. For once, she was actually grateful for Sylar's interference. She pulled it out and answered it quickly, being sure to keep her neck hidden from the blonde girl with the stake.

"Hi," she spoke shortly.

"Where are you?" Sylar asked her, and Claire thought she might have heard a trace of worry in his voice.

"I went for a walk, had to get out of the room for a bit," Claire replied, not wanting to say too much for the others to overhear. "Actually, could you come pick me up? I'm over at that park a few blocks from the ice cream vendor." She wasn't sure he would know where that was, and she wasn't familiar with the street names.

He assured her that he'd find her, and then hung up the phone.

Claire pocketed the cell phone, putting it back in her pocket. "I have a ... friend coming to pick me up. I'll be fine, really."

Buffy nodded her head, torn between forcing Spike back to Xander's basement, and keeping an eye on the girl to make sure no other trouble found her. The latter won out, and Buffy told her that she'd wait with her.

Claire was bit uneasy about that, but she took the opportunity to ask a question that had been on her mind for the last day at least. "So ... vampires?"

Buffy glanced at Spike briefly before nodding. "Yeah ... the town's kinda full of them. You new here?"

Claire nodded after a moment. "Fairly."

"Well, hopefully the nightlife hasn't turned you off of Sunnydale," Buffy replied.

Claire shrugged. "Not sure how long I'll be staying, anyway." She remembered that Sylar was supposed to have gotten her fake ID and transcripts. "I might be getting a place closer to the campus," she added. Anything to get out of the motel room they currently resided in.

"Oh, you go to UC Sunnydale?" Buffy asked her.

Claire looked over at her, shifting her feet slightly. "Yeah, I'm just waiting to hear back about some of my courses." She really hoped Sylar had gotten the transcripts.

"Oh, a college girl, are you?" Spike spoke up, stepping closer. He wanted to find out more about the girl, and how her neck had managed to get unbroken.

Buffy glared at him, the stake in her hand twitching.

"Easy there, Slayer. Just making conversation," Spike replied.

"Slayer?" Claire wondered, having heard Spike call her that twice now.

"It's a long story," Buffy told her, looking from Spike to her. "I'm Buffy."

"Claire," Claire greeted, holding out her free hand for the other girl to shake.

Just then, a car came peeling around the corner, stopping in front of the sidewalk by the park. Sylar stepped out of the car, moving towards them.

Claire's eyes widened, shocked by the sight of the car. He'd definitely gone all-out. Pitch-black in color, looking pristine, even though it appeared to be a classic, old-style Mustang. Design looked to be from the sixties. Before she could comment on the car, Sylar was at her side.

His eyes flickered to the other two before he decided to lay it on thick. "Claire, what happened?" he asked, pulling her into his arms.

It was all Claire could do to not knee him in the groin for touching her like that, but she didn't want to make a scene in front of the other two. "It's nothing, I'm fine," she mumbled against his shoulder, wanting desperately to pull back. He wasn't holding her too tightly, but it was still uncomfortable ... being Sylar and all.

"You should really get that looked at," Buffy told her.

Claire nodded, pulling away from Sylar without looking like she was repulsed by him. "Right ... we should probably head to the hospital now," she said to Sylar, motioning to the car.

"Of course," he replied, glancing at the other two before opening the door for Claire.

Claire paused at the action, but didn't say anything, simply sliding into the vehicle.

Sylar moved to get back into his seat, when he suddenly stopped, looking at both Buffy and Spike. He was struck with a strange feeling ... different than the one he'd felt with the two girls in the magic store, but the same sort of weird tingling in the tip of his spine. They were different. His fingers twitched involuntarily as he stared at them.

"Something wrong?" Buffy asked him, looking from him to Claire in the car.

"Sylar? ... Hospital?" Claire spoke, wondering if she'd have to get in his way again.

Sylar seemed to snap out of his trance on his own, and looked back towards the car. "Right ... sorry. Um, thank you," he muttered to the two blonde on the grass, before he crossed to the driver's side and got into the car.

Claire lifted her hand in a small wave as they drove away, taking her hand off of her neck once they were finally out of eyesight. "Don't do that again," she told him.

"I didn't do anything," Sylar reminded her. "I didn't touch them."

Claire shook her head. "I wasn't talking about them. You don't get to hug me," she informed him.

Sylar sighed. "You know, you can't hate me forever."

"I can sure try," Claire replied, glaring over at him.

Sylar shrugged in response. "You'll get bored, eventually."

Claire rolled her eyes at him. "Did you get the stuff?"

He handed her an envelope as he drove, his eyes focused on the road. "Congratulations. You are now Claire Butler, high school graduate. The transcripts should get you into any course you want to take, and I've arranged for a donation to be made in the school, as incentive for them to accept your late admission."

Claire blinked in surprise, nodding her head. "Good."

They traveled along the road in silence for a bit, until Claire noticed that they weren't headed towards the motel. "Where are we going?"

"I rented a place near the campus," Sylar explained shortly.

"And you were planning on telling me that, when?" Claire asked him, not mentioning that she was going to suggest that they do just that.

Sylar looked at her momentarily. "I might have, Claire, if you had bothered to speak to me like I was even a little bit human. I don't need to stay with you, I don't need to help you get back," he informed her. "You wanna hate me? That's fine, I deserve it. I can only apologize so many times for what I did to you. But don't for a second think that I'm going to bend over backwards to accommodate you, just to get berated and insulted at every turn, understand? There are limits to my restraint."

Neither one of them said another word as the drive continued.

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The house he'd rented by the campus was surprisingly small. Considering the car, and the clothes, and everything else that he'd bought in the space of a single day, Claire had expected that he would get the most outrageously expensive house that there was. Instead, he found a simple, three-bedroom house that was a fair distance from the college. It was closer to domestic housing, which was probably why it hadn't been rented out. The rent itself was also steep, which might have had a hand in it still being available so late in the semester.

Claire wanted to ask Sylar where he'd gone for the IDs, where he'd gotten the car ... there were many questions that she wanted to ask him, but she was uneasy to begin a conversation with him after what he'd said in the car.

On the one hand, she wasn't afraid that he would hurt her. He literally couldn't, not anymore. He might hurt someone else, though, because of her, and her conscience wouldn't let that happen.

On the other hand, he may have had a small point. They were both stuck in their current predicament, and her being snippy and spiteful wouldn't help matters much.

On the other, other hand - because apparently she had three - she had every right to be pissed at him, and he couldn't expect her to act as though everything was ... peachy.

So, they spent the rest of the evening reading their books in relative silence. Claire had a meeting with the Dean of the college in two days, and with any luck, she would start classes when they began again in January. Though, she really hoped they wouldn't be stuck for that long. She'd only been trapped in the past for a day, and already she was homesick. Severely. None of this would have happened if she hadn't gone after Canfield like she did. Though, if she hadn't gone after him, then her father would have gotten a hold of him, and he would be back in level 5.

Claire figured that as long as she got home okay, she couldn't blame Canfield for just trying to save himself, so that he could get back to his family. She hoped that he at least had them.

Claire stretched out onto her stomach on her temporary bed, flipping through the pages of the large book in front of her. She was currently reading a book that centered around aspects of time travel, but it mostly talked about powerful Witches and Warlocks who had supposedly traveled backwards in time, and ended up changing major events in history. The book postulated that certain historical events - the good ones at least - happened because of Wiccan interference.

Claire sighed, dog-earing her page and moving onto another book. Her eyes were starting to go cross-eyed again, so she decided to take break from reading and grab a drink from the kitchen.

A part of her had to wonder if Sylar had someone managed to manipulate time as well, because he seemed to have gotten so much done in such a small amount of time. Fake identities, a car, a house, more money than they could spend, and a meeting with the Dean of UC Sunnydale. They were well on their way to creating a foundation for Claire to work with, to get close to the two girls with power - whatever their power might be. They seemed to think that they were stronger together, so Claire would have to find a way to get close to both of them.

As she walked down the stairs, she thought about the store they'd been in, and the blonde girl's knowledge of certain magical items. Perhaps that was her connection. Claire made a mental note to learn whatever she could about a bunch of magical stuff, and see if she could find an 'in' there.

She made her way into the kitchen, surprised to see Sylar sitting cross-legged on the island in the middle of the room. Claire opened the fridge, grabbing a bottle of water out of the door. "What are you doing?" she asked him, realizing that it was the first sentence she'd spoken to him since their ride in the car, a few hours ago. When she received no response, she took a few steps closer to him, and realized that his eyes were closed. "Sylar?" she spoke, a little bit louder. Still no response. Annoyed, thinking that he might be ignoring her, Claire moved to shake his shoulder. "Hello, I'm talking to -"

The next thing Claire knew, she was flat on her back on the ground, and Sylar was staring at her with a look in his eyes that Claire could only describe with one word: feral.

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End of chapter four.

I know, the Buffy/Spike stuff was a bit quick, but I didn't want to go too far with their characters in this chapter. I'm kind of thinking this story will be one of my longer ones, so I'm trying to space it out a bit.

What did you guys think of this one? Like it, hate it?

Reviews are appreciated, flame if you must, but constructive criticism is much more useful.

Until next time ...!