Chapter Ten - Meet The Parents
The door jingles again and Claire sees that Ando is now walking towards her. "Hello, Claire," he says, smiling and looking very windswept, not picking up on the bewilderment that must be all over her face. Claire looks outside, sees her red BMW parked in front of the diner and there he is, Peter, closing the driver's door and making his way to the diner.
Her eyes turn back to Nathan.
She's completely and utterly speechless.
Peter opens the door to the diner and seems to notice Claire right away. Surprise lingers on his face only for a second before he glances between her and Nathan; Claire stops gaping at Nathan long enough to glare at her uncle.
"What's wrong?"
"What's wrong?" gasps Claire. "You said you were going to call me!"
"I did call you."
"On Christmas!" Claire says. "Just one time! You said you were going to call if anything important happens!"
Peter holds up his hands. "I know," he says. "I know."
The calm expression settled on his face annoys her, so she lets out her anger in the way that she knows best - she punches him in the arm, hard. "Do you not think that this - " she gestures wildly to Nathan, so full of emotion she doesn't know how to deal with it, " - is important?"
"Of course I do, Claire," he says, "I just - "
"Whatever." She cuts him off, not believing that after promising not to keep her in the dark, Peter did the exact opposite.
"I thought," Claire says, her voice shaking as she ignores Peter and turns to Nathan again, "that you were in a coma."
Nathan closes the distance between them and places his hands on her shoulders. "I was until about an hour ago," he says quietly. He looks over at Peter, whose arms are crossed in a stony silence. "Peter didn't have time to contact you, I wanted to fly here right away."
"Fly?" she whispers. "But the car - "
"Peter teleported. I flew with Ando and Peter teleported with the car."
"You can do that?" Claire asks, glancing at her uncle. Peter shrugs, not looking at her; she suddenly wishes she hadn't punched him.
"I would have been here sooner, but I had to see Heidi and the boys," Nathan says, making her look away from Peter, and suddenly Claire wraps her arms around his waist, breathing in his starchy suit smell, something unfamiliar and yet she's glad it's back, glad that the man who saved the world has returned. And, what's more, he's returned to her, his illegitimate daughter, and she's so confused and grateful that she does the only thing she's ever known how to do really well - she continues to hug him.
If Nathan feels awkward by this sudden and confusing display of affection, Claire doesn't feel it. He slips into this hug just as well as he did when they hugged for the first time in his office, but instead of feeling cold and bitter, Claire feels ultimately relieved in his arms.
Soon enough she pulls back, traces of a smile on her lips, as she looks over at Ando and Peter. She hugs Ando, too, and Peter for good measure. "Sorry," she whispers, embarrased, into his ear.
"Don't worry about it," he whispers back. Claire pulls away from him, returns his tiny smile, and watches the way Peter's eyes sweep over to Nathan. The blissful expression on his face makes him look so much younger, and Claire can't be more happy that Peter's finally got his hero back.
---
When Zach comes
into the diner, hair a mess and rambling about an after school
meeting that didn't go well at all, Claire grabs his shoulders and
spins him around so that he's facing Nathan Petrelli. "Oh,"
he says awkwardly, staring around at everyone, "hey."
---
The night goes by in a blurry haze and Claire can't ever remember being so happy and so anxious all at once. After hopping eagerly into the front seat of her car, Peter tosses her the keys and she drives them all to her house.
The greetings are more than a little weird, especially when Nathan's head cocks to the side and inspects her father carefully, then drops the hand he'd been shaking and says, "You, you tried to kidnap me."
Zach punctuates this dramatic, silent moment with a low whistle and Claire resists the urge to smack him.
"I did a lot of things," says her dad, "but I'm not in that business any longer. Now I'm in the business of being a good father," and he smiles warmly at Claire. Nathan crosses his arms across his chest, clearly not pleased with this response, but he steps into the living room anyway and is directed to the couch.
The talk is all boring for the most part, chatter that has nothing to do with anything, until Claire asks Peter how his training with Molly is going.
Peter leans against the arm of the sofa comfortably. "It's done."
Her mouth drops open excitedly. "Done? You can find people now?"
"We find Hiro tomorrow!" Ando interjects, grinning from ear to ear.
Claire nods eagerly. "Okay, cool!"
Her eyes find Peter's and he smiles briefly at her before looking away.
---
After dinner (which is thankfully short, because Claire can tell that Mr. Muggles is annoying the hell out of Nathan), everyone goes back into the living room again, but she goes outside, feeling overwhelmed. She never would have dreamed that her mom and dad would be having a civilized conversation with her bio-dad and uncle, one of whom is a politician, one of whom has exploded.
She also never would have expected to at one moment feel strangely contented and the next hopelessly confused. But she does.
She wants to talk to Nathan, to ask him where they stand. She wants to get to know him, maybe, if he'll let her. He's her father and she's his daughter and even though they're not under the same roof and she already has someone to call 'Dad', she wants to try.
At the same time, Claire's excited about tomorrow, about finding out where Hiro is and bringing him back for Ando, but she wonders what will happen after that. They'll probably all part ways again. Hiro and Ando will go to Japan, which is okay because they aren't related to her, but Peter and Nathan will go back to New York, and she'll be here in Odessa. Is she just supposed to let them go, forget that she's ever met them? Is Nathan destined to go back to being a cold-hearted politician who doesn't have a daughter? Is Peter destined to go back to being a distant memory, the man who never saved her, the man who never wiped her tears? Is she supposed to pretend that she didn't mourn them when she thought they were dead, that she felt like her heart was sewing itself back together when Peter came back, that she never became friends with him?
The cold air makes her wrap her arms around herself and she remembers Peter warming her up with radiation. Smiling softly to herself, she wishes Zach was still here. He'd gone home about an hour ago, leaving her to deal with her "uber freaky family status", and now she needs someone to talk to.
All is quiet and so Claire can easily hear footsteps approach her. She's standing by her family's mailbox, staring out at the stretching black road in front of it, which is illuminated only slightly by streetlamps.
She hears someone saying her name quietly and she turns a little, finding herself looking up at Nathan. Her heart starts to beat rather fast in spite of itself, her nerves catching up with her. She has no idea what to expect from him. "Hi," she offers with a small smile; he returns it.
They stand together in the darkness, silent, and Claire wishes she knew what to say. All the questions that she's wanted to ask Nathan since the night he became a hero have left her suddenly, and she half-wishes that he would take charge and speak first.
About two minutes later, he does. "Claire," he starts, his forehead wrinkling slightly, "I wanted to thank you."
Claire faces him directly, her eyebrows raising with shock. If she had expected anything to come out of Nathan's mouth, it was certainly not this. "Why?" she asks, incredulous.
Nathan smirks slightly. "For saving Peter. For saving me." He gives a soft, deep chuckle. "For saving the world."
Claire shakes her head. "I didn't - "
"Claire," he interrupts, cutting across her protest, "Peter told me that when he came back...you were the only person he could trust. Without me, you were the only person he had left. He's always been too sensitive, even when we were kids. If you hadn't been there, he probably would have...I don't know."
Nathan shrugs uncomfortably and Claire nods. He seems to be lost in thought for a moment, even though he clearly has more on his mind, so she shifts from foot to foot, waiting for him to go on.
"That night," he starts up again, and Claire hangs on his every word, "I was ready to turn my back on him. You know that. But I couldn't... I couldn't let you shoot him. I just couldn't. And your words - "
"'The future is not written in stone'," Claire recalls.
"They made me realize what I was doing. That I was just going to let him die, that I was going to let you kill him, and I couldn't allow that to happen. Who knows where we would all be if I had."
Claire nods again and Nathan echoes her movement, and Claire knows that he's done saying what he needed to say. It's her turn now. She licks her lips anxiously, hoping she doesn't sound childish when she says it.
"I don't really think of you as my dad," she says, and it's random and abrupt despite the soft tone she uses, and Nathan looks taken aback, not by the admission but by her bluntness, "but I still want to know you. I mean, I didn't before, 'cause I didn't like you. I didn't trust you. But I think that now... Peter's always saying you're a good guy and everything, so we could... I'd like to be your friend."
Claire wishes that her voice wasn't so quiet, that her eyes weren't welling with tears, but Nathan apparently doesn't care; he looks touched. His lips purse together for the briefest of moments as he studies her.
"Okay." He nods, and then he smiles. It's not the wide, fake smile that Claire had seen numerous times in New York on campaign posters, but it's genuine and warm. Seeing it on the face of a man who she's so used to seeing as cold and stiff is one of the weirdest things she's ever seen.
It prompts her to hug him for the second time that day and she closes her eyes this time, letting out a relaxed sigh when Nathan's chin rests on the top of her head. "Okay," he says again, whispering into her hair.
"Oh, I almost forgot," she whispers back, eyes still closed, "thanks for the car."
---
To:
FilmsByZach I
can't sleep. Too excited. Are you awake? Zach? West?
You awake? What's
up? Remember
me telling you about my messed up family? Guess what? My bio-dad's
back! He's awake. Isn't that great? I want you to meet him and my
uncle. That's
great news! I'll be there tomorrow. :)
From: ClaireBearCheerleader
From: ClaireBearCheerleader
From: ClaireBearCheerleader
From: WestNotEast
From:
ClaireBearCheerleader
From: WestNotEast
---
West knocks on the door at 10:30 the next morning, when most people his age would still be sleeping. Claire, being one of these people, is still in her pink, teddy bear pajamas when she answers the door, but is happy to see him nonetheless. Kissing him on the cheek, she waves her arms, beckoning him to come in.
She realizes that West has never actually been in her house before and has never met her parents. It has only been a week or so that they've become good friends. A week may not be a long time for most people to get close, but Claire feels that sometimes you can really get to know a person within a week. It was, after all, in a week's time that she got Zach to become her best friend again after his memories had been erased. Sometimes a week is all it takes.
Still, it might be weird for him. "This is okay, right?" she asks, but before West can answer, her father has appeared out of nowhere and walks up to him a bit skeptically before shaking his hand.
Soon Lyle comes up to West, too, and the first words out of his mouth are, "Hey, you look like the quarterback," which makes her father give a hard frown.
Then Ando comes into the room and Claire remembers that today's the day they're going to save Hiro. West's visit is going to have to be quick. She briefly introduces the two, then excuses herself to go get dressed.
As she runs up the stairs, she crashes into someone and falls down backwards, her hand knocking painfully into the banister. She hears a distinct popping sound, but then Peter's lifting her up. "You okay?" he asks, concern there even though it doesn't need to be.
Claire raises her right hand and snaps her pinkie finger back into place, smiling brightly. "Nothing that can't heal," she says and he looks a bit taken aback by her sunniness, which only makes her smile more.
And then she races the rest of the way upstairs.
---
She's dressed in jeans and a red shirt with black stripes, with big, white hoop earrings to complete her outfit. She's glad she wore it because West has been eyeing her appreciatively every couple of minutes for the past hour.
Thankfully no one noticed, though, because Claire doesn't know how her family would react to a boy checking her out. They seem to like him, which is cool. They've laughed at his jokes and asked him about where he's from (noting his lack of a southern accent), his family, and other safe topics. Claire feels a little silly about it all, because she and West aren't even going out.
Not that she hasn't thought about it...
Shaking her head, she makes a mental note to herself not to think about West today. Today is the day to think about Hiro. She stands up, ready to show West out, and her mom stands up, too. "Hang on a minute, honey, let's pack him up some food," she says, walking to the kitchen.
Only her mother would give a guest leftovers from breakfast. Claire follows her into the kitchen, nearly tripping over some garland on the floor, even though Christmas was a week ago. "I'm going to have to put away all the Christmas decorations away today," her mother comments as she packs pancakes into tupperware. "I'll get Lyle to help, while ya'll find this friend of yours."
"Thanks, mom," says Claire, taking the tupperware from her when she's finished filling it with leftovers.
Leaving her mother in the kitchen and walking back into the living room, she sees that no one else is left in the room except for West and Peter. She promises West that she'll see him on Monday and they exchange a hug before he leaves.
"Where's Ando?" she asks, a faint blush still on her cheeks as she turns to Peter.
"Bathroom," he answers.
"Nathan?"
"Talking to your dad in there." He nods toward the den, then stands up and walks over to her. "Ready to save Hiro?"
Claire nods as her mother yells from the kitchen. "Claire, honey, I think there's still some Christmas stuff out there! Could you bring it in here to me?"
"Sure, mom." She walks around the living room, finding a couple of Christmas tree ornaments lying around.
"So, Peter," she says as he hands her a string of popcorn kernels lying at his feet, "do you guys normally have fake Christmas trees or - "
Her words die on her lips as she eyes the spot above his head.
Mistletoe.
If she had been blushing before, that's nothing to what she's doing now. She turns her eyes immediately to the ground.
"Claire, what - ?"
His words fade away, too.
Then, into the quiet, he says, "Oh," as if this is nothing to be concerned about.
But it is because it's her and her uncle and they're under mistletoe. And you have to kiss when you're under mistletoe, it's like a rule of some kind. Which makes this beyond weird.
Still, they go for it at the same time.
Claire lifts her head, preparing to kiss him briefly on the lips, before she realizes that this is not the kind of kiss Peter has in mind. He's leaning down to kiss the top of her head, but it's too late now because she's already moved.
He winds up kissing her nose instead and Claire's eyes flutter shut at the touch. It's quick, but it's like a caress and she finds herself wondering what it would feel like if he kissed her on the mouth.
But Peter pulls away, smirking at her in that Peter way of his, and she pushes that thought out of her mind, a bit confused. Why is she even thinking this way? Peter's her uncle, for crying out loud. People just don't have those kinds of thoughts about their uncles. Ew.
Thankfully oblivious to her thoughts, Peter reaches up and takes down the mistletoe, handing it to her as Ando comes back into the living room. "Ready to be a hero again?" he says gleefully, and Claire doesn't know if he's talking to her or Peter.
She responds anyway, pasting a just-as-gleeful smile on her face, trying to ignore the dizzying sensation in her stomach and her still tingling nose.