"Claire? I--this is Gabriel. Something's happened. I think you need to see it. I'm at the shop now, please... come over. If you can, that is. Um. Bye." Claire listened to the message Gabriel had left on her answering machine, clamping down on the happy jump her heart gave at the sound of his voice. The message was characteristically awkward, but mercifully short. She listened to it once more before hanging up.

She glanced toward the door, then to the groceries she had scattered about the kitchen. First things first, she thought as she heaved up a gallon of milk and slid it into the fridge.

Once the last can had been placed in the pantry and the last bag of vegetables deposited in the crisper, she leaned her palms against the counter, head ducked down, and thought. Getting involved with Gabriel Gray was a mistake, his homicidal tendencies aside. She knew it, and as of last night he knew it as well, regardless of... what else had happened. Regardless of how she couldn't seem to prevent it.

Helping a friend, however, was something else altogether. And for all that she didn't want to fall for Gabriel, she also didn't want to lose his friendship. Thus her predicament. Momentarily she reflected on the absurdity of befriending and falling in love with a man who tried to harm her, but she supposed that was the very least of the strange things her life had thrown at her.

She sighed. She had an inkling that she was Gabriel's only real friend, and if he needed help she needed to be there for him, complications or no. She could only hope he had worked out some way to restrain the urge to kill her.

Pushing away from the counter, she snatched up her purse and headed to the door. Catching herself before she stepped out, she picked up the pair of glasses that rested on the console, the bows neatly folded. It puzzled her that Gabriel hadn't come back to pick them up, but since she was going to go see him she supposed she could just give them to him then. She slipped them in her purse.

With that she stepped out of her apartment and slammed her door closed behind her, already half-anticipating the sunshine. It had grown a little cooler since Saturday last, but it was still a perfectly glorious Wednesday afternoon. She skipped down the main steps, her periwinkle sundress billowing out behind her.

Before she knew it she had reached the clock shop. She paused to gather herself before stepping inside, making sure to leave behind her caution and doubts. They would not help her. Pushing open the door, she sighed as the soft ticking of hundreds of clocks washed over her, the familiar sound once again easing her tensions. She stood awkwardly among the display cases; though the clocks were everywhere, the proprietor was nowhere to be seen.

"Gabriel?" she called out.

"Claire?" Gabriel's head popped around the divider, and inexplicably her awkwardness eased at the sight of him. "I'm back here." Nodding, she eased her way through the clutter to join him.

He was bending over his workbench, putting the tools of his trade away. She stood next to the frosted glass panel separating the front from the back, watching him. He closed a rather complex-looking press of some sort first, winding it shut before moving it to a shelf by the divider. Next he gathered up a small pile of stray pins heaped near his magnifying lamp, separating them with the speed of the familiar into the little glass jars bunched up along the left side of his workspace. Finally he popped a staggering array of absolutely tiny screwdrivers into a holder that splayed them out like the petals of a flower. His task done, she watched him steel himself before straightening to face her.

He looked... different. She gazed at him, trying to place what exactly was off. Maybe it was his slightly less-than-buttoned-up appearance; his shirtsleeves were rolled up, presumably to keep them out of the way while he worked, and the top few buttons were undone over his sweater vest. Then she noticed--

"You're not wearing any glasses!" she exclaimed. He blinked at the non-sequitir, and this time Claire felt her own face heat.

"Yeah," he said finally. "I left my glasses at your apartment, but when I dug out my spare pair when I got home it turned out I didn't need them." He watched her inscrutably.

"You look... good," Claire said slowly, taking in his features. His nose and dark eyes were made more prominent, and the dramatic sweep of his eyebrows made him seem somehow more predatory now that they weren't covered by the thick frames of his glasses. He looked more than good, but Claire wasn't letting herself think that.

Predictably, he blushed, but he also relaxed. "You think so?" he asked. "I feel so exposed without them, what with--" he gestured toward his eyebrows. "It's like they have a life of their own."

"No, they're lovely," Claire said, and impulsively reached out to brush her fingertip along one brow. It was deceptively soft, for all that it was bushy. Then she remembered what she was doing, and pulled her hand away. An awkward silence filled up the gap.

"Uh, well," Gabriel started, clearing his throat. "Thanks."

Claire quickly changed the topic. "So what were you working on?" she asked, peering down at the stack of watches off to the side. She read the name off the closest one. "Sylar? That's a German name, isn't it?"

Gabriel's reaction was not what she expected. "That's nothing," he said, scooping up the watch and throwing it in a drawer.

"You just acted like it was something," Claire disagreed.

"I told you; it's nothing."

"Alright, it's nothing," Claire said, unsettled by his reaction, but hiding it as best she could. "What were you working on, then?"

Gabriel didn't say anything, he just pulled an old pocket watch from the top of the pile and handed it to her. She hefted it, feeling the weight of it, and the smooth scrape of the etching on the cover. "It's a beautiful piece," she said. "The ferns are rather unusual."

"Yes, it's exceptionally well-made." His brow furrowed then, and he shoved his hands in his pockets. "There's something very wrong with the movement, though, and I can't seem to figure it out. Also... the man who brought it in was... strange." He shook his head and looked up at her. "His last name was Bennet, that's probably the real reason he made an impression."

"I imagine it's not that uncommon a name," Claire said, handing back the watch.

Gabriel gave her a strange look as he pulled a hand out of its pocket to take it. "That's exactly what he said."

Claire shrugged. "You wanted to show me something?" she prompted.

"Uh, right," he said. He shifted uncomfortably, as though searching for where to start. Coming to a decision, he returned the watch to its pile, then pulled out his other hand and began looking for something in the organized chaos of his desk outside the work area, pushing aside paperwork and loupes as he searched. He returned with a pocket knife.

"I think the best way to tell you is to show you," he said, opening up the knife and holding out his hand.

"Gabriel..." Claire said, not entirely certain what he was going to do, but her protest was cut off when he dug the point of the knife into the meat of his palm and cut a deep gash through the skin.

"Oh my God!" she squawked, snatching the knife from his fingers and throwing it away as though it were poisonous. She seized his bleeding hand and pulled it to her. "What were you thinking?" she berated, looking for anything absorbent to stanch the flow of blood.

"Claire," he said, his other hand hovering in the air between them uncertainly. "Claire, it's alright. Look." Obliging, she looked down at his abused palm. The wound closed up even as she watched.

She gasped. And kept gasping, her lungs seemingly unable to fill with oxygen. It couldn't be, just couldn't... "I can heal, now," Gabriel said, confirming her wildly swinging thoughts.

Her sight fogged with tears she wouldn't let drop, panicked, hopeful, confused tears. She was backed against the wall. This was far more painful than anything else he had done to her; this was false hope, and it tore viciously because there was no way it could be true. He said himself he had to kill to gain new powers. Hadn't he?

She didn't really register his arms going around her, pulling her close, or of her pressing her face into his sweater, of filling her nose with his scent--laundry starch, soap and the spice that was his skin. The tears began leaking out against her will, and she shook with the force of her silent sobs.

"I'm not going anywhere," he murmured, rubbing her back as she poured out her hurt, the hundreds of years of loneliness cracking and crumbling in her heart.

Slowly she came back to herself, tucked against Gabriel's chest, his sweater wet from her tears. She pushed back, blinking and sniffing, and turned away to hide her face. He didn't comment, merely passed her a handy box of tissues. "Thank you," she said mutedly, her voice thick with crying.

Gabriel backed up to sit on his workbench. "You're welcome," he replied. "If I had known that's how you would've reacted I don't think I would have mentioned it," he said, smiling good-naturedly as he brushed at the wet mark on his front.

"I'm sorry, Gabriel, to break down like that," she said, turning to face him, face composed, "but I've been lonely for a long time, and it's difficult to accept that it might have changed overnight."

"Yeah, about that," he said, standing up suddenly to pace. "I don't know how it happened, exactly. I found out today, when I got a monster paper cut from a file folder, and it vanished right before my eyes. It--I--last night, before I--I kissed you--" he blushed bright red, "--I felt something change. Like I had never been sick a day in my life and never would, and nothing could keep me down." An awed look crossed his face, and he stopped pacing to face her. "I think I absorbed your power--it was like it was right before I fixed the clock, I understood its pain and I could fix it. Except I understood you and how your power worked, and then--" he waved his still-bloody hand. "I don't think you'll have to be alone anymore," he said, hope springing from his eyes.

Claire didn't say anything. She contemplated his healed hand, processing his rambling statement, then flicked her gaze to meet his. "Do you still want to kill me?" she asked bluntly.

Gabriel pulled back, confusion written across his face from the abrupt change of subject. It didn't last long, however; a gigantic smile rushed in to take its place. "That's the best part, Claire, I don't anymore! I guess once I have a power the hunger to obtain goes away--logical really, when you think about it--" Claire nodded along, but stopped listening. Instead, she bent down to retrieve the fallen knife, still red with Gabriel's blood, and straightened. She looked at Gabriel, who had trailed off to watch her, but he didn't really comprehend what she was doing until she slashed her own palm open in front of his face. It healed immediately.

"Jesus Christ, Claire!" He yelled, jumping back only to stumble on a stack of files. He righted himself and scrambled to stand on the opposite side of his workbench from her. "What did you do that for?!"

"I'm making absolutely certain," she said unforgivingly. "Do you still want to kill me?"

"I never wanted to in the first place!" he roared, red-faced with embarrassment and anger, pressing his hands into the workbench he was careful to keep between them. "All I care about is the power, the killing just happens!"

"The question stands," Claire said implacably. "Do you still want my power?"

"I fucking told you I didn't!"

"Then why are you hiding behind the desk?" She asked.

Gabriel looked down at the workbench he was leaning against in surprise. "Because... I don't know!" he snapped. "Just because!"

"Gabriel, how can I trust you when you don't even trust yourself?"

He gaped at her. "That was low, Claire," he said once he regained his voice. "The last two times I saw you I tried to slice off the top of your head, forgive me for being a little jumpy at such a blatant show of your power!"

Claire blanched. "That's what you do, you slice off the tops of their heads?"

Gabriel scowled. "Well it's only been one, but yes, I cut off the top of his head."

"Why?"

He sighed, straightening, and looked away, his anger exhausted. "I need to see the brain," he said. "That's where the power is located, I have to find it. Then I sort of... rearrange my own DNA so that it displays that pattern as well." He glanced at Claire, across the room, and winced at her horrified expression. "I'm sorry you found out, I never wanted you to have to know the specifics."

"Didn't want... know... specifics..." Claire's mouth worked, trying to imagine Gabriel with his hands buried in someone's head. Her mind avoided the mental image, sliding off it like she was trying grip hold of a wet bar of soap. She turned away, set to walk out, when she suddenly felt herself trapped, as though the air itself hardened up to impede her progress. Jerking her head around, she stared at Gabriel, his hand outstretched.

His eyes widened, and he threw down his arm. The obstruction vanished, its sudden absence causing her to sway. "I--I'm sorry," he said, shock written through his words. "I didn't mean--I... Don't go," he whispered.

"I'm leaving, Gabriel," she said slowly and clearly. "Please don't follow me." She almost ran from the shop, the bell tinkling pitilessly as she left.

Gabriel Gray was left behind, his thoughts in disarray and his heart in pieces.

Without a word he turned to his watches.

A/N: sorry for taking so long to update, folks. I had a bit of a case of writer's block that knocked me flat, and I just got back on my feet. Enjoy!