6

A Little Bit of History Repeating


Peter pressed his ear to the door of the motel room to listen for the pitiful whimpering of a girl behind it. He nodded slowly to his partner in confirmation that they had the correct location and backed away. Noah readied his gun, giving a silent count of three before kicking in the door and leading the charge into the room. Peter froze time around the space to thwart any potential attack laying in wait and stepped around the suspended form of Noah.

The inside of the room was identical to the others in its modest but appropriate accommodations which had been kept surreptitiously clean. Unlike the others though, Claire had been left behind like some kind of macabre centerpiece. He caught himself choking on her name in a tightened throat as he approached. Her face, forever unchanging, was bloodied as though she had been beaten to a pulp before healing. Evidence of torture skirted crimson lines all around her body right down to the noticeably empty belly where an unborn child should have been. His niece was strapped down to a chair, frozen in time and space with her tattered clothes and dirt-smudged skin. Peter had never seen her so ragged before and the horror of it tore away his concentration as he thumbed away the tear that streamed halfway down her cheek. It was all of their worst fears for the girl come true in one neatly bundled package.

"Peter?" she rasped as sadly as he had ever heard.

"It's okay now," he soothed, taking her into his arms for a hug. "I'm here now. Everything is going to be okay. We found you."

"Where's Sylar?" Noah kept his weapon at the ready, eyeing every shadow and corner for the Boogeyman. He swept the room for any sign of his lingering occupancy or some form of trap. Finding none, he came back to his daughter whose quaking form was somehow out of place in a way that he couldn't logically explain.

"He - he's gone," Claire wailed sorrowfully into Peter's shoulder. "He knew you'd come for me," she sniffed. "He knew you wouldn't stop. But… But…" Peter whispered soothing reassurances in her ear that she was safe and couldn't be hurt again, swiping away her tears as they poured, and smoothing her tangled hair away from her stained face. "He took the baby," she stammered. "He cut it out of me!"

Their worst nightmare had come to life, and the force of it chilled the blood in their veins. "He cut it out of me!" Claire continued to shriek brokenly as Peter held her fast. Bennet felt undeniably compelled to comfort his daughter in her time of distress, but the faintest inkling of an unnamed something scratched from the dark recesses of his memories. He had been an agent for the Company for far too long, seen too many inexplicable things, and witnessed too many abilities at play. His instincts had been finely honed from trial by fire experience until they had become precision tools to be trusted in any situation, and they were definitely speaking of danger amiss.

"Peter, back away from the girl," the Company man commanded.

"What?" He turned to see Noah raising the barrel of his gun to be sight level with the space between Claire's eyes. "Noah, what the hell are you doing?" Peter positioned himself in between them like a human shield for his niece.

"How do we know this is Claire?" Bennet's low tone and carefully slow enunciation communicated everything that he had felt to the empath. Petrelli warily eyed the girl from the very edges of his peripheral view, suddenly becoming aware that while the flood of emotions he had picked up on from the source in the room were genuine and potent, they were also inaccurate. A trap.

"It's her," a cracked little giggle sounded. The smirk deviously lifting the corner of their precious Claire Bear's sweet lips took on demonically disturbing proportions. "Because it's me."

Claire lifted the lid of the trunk she was hiding in when she was sure that it was safe to take a peek. Sylar had made sure that she knew where the emergency handle was to open it from the inside so that she wouldn't be stuck in there should an event occur where he wouldn't be able to retrieve her in a timely manner, but he had still left it cracked open a touch, perhaps afraid for her air circulation. She greatly appreciated the gesture. Being confined in a tight space when not heavily pregnant was uncomfortable enough, but in the rising heat of tension she very much needed the little breeze that was allowed just to refrain from overheating.

From her position in the parking lot she could see the door to their motel room across the way, but not much inside. Sylar was more than reluctant to share the details of his plan which made her anxious about agreeing to anything, but he did assure her that the goal was to incapacitate rather than harm. He intended to use his abilities for shape-shifting and telepathy to confuse them, or make the agents believe that he had left her. Anything that could reasonably buy them time.

She watched Peter and her father enter the room. What felt like an eternity of three minutes later the door slammed shut loud enough for her to almost feel the splintering of the wood. At the sound of the first gun shot, Claire rolled with all of her might to climb out of the car trunk. Bright blue electrical arches could be seen casting ghastly shadows from behind the drawn curtains as she dashed for the motel room as fast as was possible in her condition. She tried the knob first and pulled back a palm of hissing skin that had been burnt by the heat radiating from the metal fixture. Hurling her body weight against the barrier was nearly as effective, the door having been sealed tightly shut by powers on the other side. She could hear muffled curses and scrambling from inside as if a physical altercation had broken out, and then she was stumbling backwards when Peter wrenched the door away from her eavesdropping ear.

"Claire?" he asked in a daze. He stopped to stare at her in unfocused skepticism for a moment before losing his balance and having to catch himself. Peter appeared to have taken quite a beating. A nasty gash in his right eyebrow trickled dark blood around his eye, and his shirt had been ripped around the collar. Most of the damage went unseen by his coverings, but she recognized his awkward lurching movements as those of a man in excruciating pain from having been tossed about like a rag doll. "We have to get out of here."

"Where's my dad?" The simple question stunned him for a second and he turned a glance over his shoulder before shaking his head nonsensically. "Sylar?" Claire called out with more fear leaking into her voice with every passing heartbeat where neither man answered. "Dad?"

"He didn't make it, Claire." Peter leaned himself against the wall with a sharp groan in hopes of rest.

"No." She shook her head in denial. "No. No, that wasn't the plan."

"It was an ambush," her uncle tried to explain sympathetically despite his own pain. "I'm sorry." Claire made to charge past him into the motel room to see his body for herself, but Peter reached out to stop her, tugging her into a hug that only tightened however much she struggled. "I'm sorry," he soothed with every punch, kick, and scream.

"That wasn't the plan!" she cried into his already dampened shoulder.

"I've got Sylar frozen right now, but it's not going to last very long like this." Peter gently grasped her face so that she was forced to look him in the eyes and understand. "We have to get away from here." Grief carried her along into shock so Claire merely nodded sullenly. Sylar had known exactly what her father meant to her. How could he betray her by killing him that way? She wouldn't buy his self-defense excuses again.

"Claire, look at me." Peter pulled her back to the realm of reality. "We have to fix this. I have Hiro's power. We can go back and stop this from happening." She nodded again in agreement so he shut his eyes and concentrated on the cool flush washing over him like rippling water as time and space bent to his will.


February 13, 2006 - 31 days until 'Patient Zero' is discovered

A car honking startled her after the deafening silence of the parking lot's events. Claire opened her eyes to take in the familiar scene of the Gray and Sons street side watch shop in New York City. Peter released her from his hold to draw a Company issue pistol from the waistband of his jeans.

"What are you doing?"

"Fixing this mess," Peter stated bluntly as if his intentions should have been obvious. Claire opened her mouth to argue but he cut her off instantly. "Sylar killed my brother, Claire. Nathan. He took him away from us. And he killed your mother, and he just killed Noah." He drifted off into a grisly memory momentarily before continuing. "He's never going to stop. And neither will my mother. It's time to end this. This time, we get it right."

The force of his convictions were something to behold. Righteous like the crusader's faith, and equally daunting, but that didn't stop Claire from holding a palm to his chest to halt his progress. However right he may have been she wouldn't allow Peter to kill Sylar. He was her lover. The father of her child. And her responsibility.

"This is my job." Claire quietly took the gun from his grasp, and though the fury in his eyes never faltered, he accepted that it was her task to bare. She recognized the weapon as its smooth, cool metal slipped into her fingers as though it belonged. It was her father's Strayer Voigt Infinity 1911. Peter must have lifted it from his body before having to leave.

Fresh waves of grief tightened her chest as Claire fiddled with the shop's handle before entering. If she didn't complete the mission that time around she was more than certain that Peter would, and there wouldn't be any stopping him or convincing him otherwise. Sylar had murdered her last father in front of him only moments ago, the sting of which was still freshly numb. It was their breaking point. The indisputable point in time where there was never any coming back or earning salvation.

"Now or never," she whispered to herself, wishing that the strength in those words would help to steel her resolve. Claire opened her eyes to the Gray and Sons logo sticking to the other end of the slightly fogged glass before her, and took another steadying breath. People walking by were beginning to stare but she was hard-pressed to care. None of them could possibly know what really awaited her beyond the simple entryway.

The door opened seemingly of its own accord and a tiny bell above signaled her arrival, sending her already strained heart into a burst of erratic spasms. She paused for a moment just inside of the threshold for her eyes to adjust to the relative darkness of the shop from the bright outside world. With the exception of incessant ticks and tocks sounding from every direction, the interior of the building was startlingly quiet, allowing the rapid rush of her own blood flow and hearty pulse to fill her alert ears.

She recognized everything as if it were only yesterday that she had first ventured into the place. As if it were home. Clocks of every size, shape, and variety rhythmically kept time in perfect unison. Tall ornately carved grandfather clocks were intuitively positioned to assist consumers in discerning relative categories of purchase. Simple conventional timekeepers hung from the walls alongside more intricate ones with differing background designs featuring fantastic pictures of scenery and nature. Collectible and antique cuckoos were delicately displayed from padded shelves. There was even a small selection of novelty pieces in the far corner that offered a distracting ambience in comparison to the rest of the place with brightly glowing neon colors and reversed numbers meant to make a person stop and think about what they were looking at. A long glass display case ran parallel to the wall near the door, showing rows of wristwatches from the casual to the expensive and even flashy formal. Not a single speck of dust could be found on any visible surface despite the slightly musty smell of the atmosphere. Claire smiled for how comfortable she had become in the embrace of time's endless ticking.

"Hello," a low, velvety baritone voice greeted from somewhere beyond her view, simultaneously interrupting her observation of the surroundings, and sending a surge of adrenaline through her veins. It was a voice that she would recognize anywhere. "How can I help you today?" The tall, lean visage of her arch-nemesis turned lover and back again appeared from his work room.

"I, um, I have this watch that I need to get fixed," she mumbled, using every last ounce of her restraint to avoid screaming obscenities at him. How could you do this to me?

"Well, you certainly came to the right place," he said softly with a timid smile. She couldn't help herself. She smiled back. He was just Gabriel again with his polished brown leather shoes, and not quite properly fitting trousers that exposed at least an inch of white socks beneath. The primly tucked in powder blue shirt buttoned to the top of the stiff collar, and the drab gray sweater vest hanging frumpily from his shoulders, the heavy black-rimmed glasses, and the lack of hair product… Claire had to catch herself from running up and snatching him in her arms. She hadn't realized how much she missed simple, boring Gabriel that could never hurt anyone without provocation. By that point she may have even missed his mother. Well, maybe she wouldn't go that far.

"I really did." Gabriel quirked his head to the side, reading her like the open book she had always been to him, but there was more to it than she had realized before. Claire knew him the second time around and she read him just as easily. The pupil dilation that darkened his eyes, the shy demeanor, the pink blush that tinged the tops of his ears and around his neck, as much as he was attracted to her, Gabriel was also detecting her ability and feeling it out. He just didn't know it yet.

Claire let her smile fall. History had a funny way of repeating itself all on its own, but she began to understand Angela's motivations a little more. The lion would never become anything other than a lion however well he masked it. She slipped the pendent necklace that he had crafted for her from her neck and moved to hand it over to him for inspection. Gabriel traced his fingers over the glass and the engraving appreciatively.

"This is a very beautiful piece," he admired. "Whoever made it is a real genius"

"You have no idea," she laughed, replaying a conversation that he hadn't had with her yet.

Gabriel gave her a quizzical expression but let the matter fall. "I'm afraid that I can't fix it for you though. It's not broken." He held it out by the chain for her to take again, but Claire only stared longingly at him in a way that he felt very uncomfortable not understanding.

"It's more broken than you'll ever know." In their proximity Claire only had to take another step closer to put her arms around him, enveloping and holding him close. Gabriel instantly became a living statue, frozen solid by his uncertainty about how to approach the matter of the strange pregnant teenager hugging him for no apparent reason, but she didn't care. She indulged in his scent and the warmth of his body, the funny little calluses on the hand that didn't know whether to pat her awkwardly on the back or push her away, and the nervous curvature of his throat as he swallowed thickly when she planted a kiss on the spot she knew shot lightning down his spine.

"I'll always love you." He was too stunned by her confession to notice the barrel of her father's gun press to his chest before she pulled the trigger. Claire never heard the shot ring. Her world darkened substantially the moment Gabriel Gray fell to the floor. It had been a clean shot straight through the heart. He hadn't felt any pain or fear, and the last thing he ever heard was someone telling him that they loved him. And even though he would never know it, he had become a father.

Peter wandered into the store after he heard the gun shot, but rather than interrupt her moment of grief, he took a seat on the counter and looked on in silence like an angel of death in his own right. Claire stroked the cheeks with their light dusting of afternoon stubble that she knew so well until the tears ran dry. Her fingers traced the hollows of his eyes and the curves of his lips. He seemed at peace to her, almost the way he did when sleeping. Relaxed and free from the tensions and anxieties of the world. Innocent. Young.

Sirens echoed in the distance. Peter shook his head distastefully. It had taken almost an hour for a response to whomever had called in the incident. He stalked over to his niece and crouched beside her, rubbing soothing circles on her back and loathing having to take her away from her closure. "We have to go now, Claire. I'm sorry."

"Where do we go from here?"

"Home." He watched her nuzzle Gabriel's bloodied neck one more time, and place a final kiss on his cooling lips with promises of an "always". "Let's go see your fathers." With that he solemnly took her hand and together they disappeared into the folds of space and time.


November 26, 2010

"Peter?" Claire wasn't sure that they had moved. She opened her eyes to the silence. He released her hand as confused as she was, spinning this way and that trying to figure out what had happened, or where they had gone. They were in New York, that much was certain as their surroundings definitely indicated Time Square. But it wasn't their New York.

The city seemed to be abandoned without a living soul in sight, person, pigeon, or otherwise. Lights were out, the ever present hum of a power grid curiously absent. Trash floated down the streets on a leisurely breeze that stirred the gentle clinking of spent bullet casings.

Peter knelt down to pick up a flyer that drifted by. It was an emergency evacuation notice ordered by the President of the United States - Arthur Petrelli. "What the…?" He turned a worried look on Claire, but her focus was over his shoulder on the battle tank that rumbled towards them.

"Stay where you are!" a masked soldier shouted at them as he and a handful of comrades spotted the duo. The soldiers were dressed down in biohazard suits and left no doubt as to their readiness to fire with the weapons they held aimed. "Are you 'specials'?"

"What?" Peter was hopelessly lost as he was shoved to the ground by two of the soldiers. He hissed for a little sting as his finger was pricked and the drop of blood on the end dripped onto a white square of indicator paper. Claire remained more or less shell shocked as they grappled her to the ground as well, thankfully somewhat more gently than they had done for him, and her blood was tested as well.

"Ah, shit, it's blue!" the soldier with the paper square screamed, and the others prepared to fire.

Claire twisted her head around to look into her uncle's worried eyes. "What did we do?"

"The butterfly effect."

To be continued...