Peter Petrelli and Gabriel Gray

Playdates

Peter pulled his jacket off and draped it over his arm. The weather was finally starting to improve. He stopped and tilted his head up into the sunlight. This was nice. The last couple of weeks turned out to be stranger than the whole of the last three years as both Angela and Claire decided that he and Sylar needed "playdates" in order to become better acquainted.

Of course, the ladies thought they were being sly about the whole affair but when your mother was Angela Petrelli, everything was already suspect. It wasn't like he or Sylar were just going to call up each other and go see a game. Hell, he didn't even know if Sylar liked sports. But he had every intention of making the effort and so Saturday morning found him outside the apartment of one Mister and Missus Gabriel Gray.

When his mother had come to him with her predictions of a horrifying future, he couldn't say he was all that surprised. All the futures he'd seen so far, frankly, weren't any better. But there was something about this one that had shaken his mother down to her core. Something that had driven Claire to make a deal with the devil, so to speak, just so it wouldn't come to pass. Peter knew that Angela was still trying to "manage" that future even as she tried to manage Sylar. A year ago, he would have said that it was impossible. Now he wasn't so sure.

Peter knocked on the non-descript door in the modest apartment complex. He didn't know what to expect. Just how did an immortal killer and an indestructible cheerleader live anyway? He'd been on his self-healing sojourn when the deal had gone down. He couldn't imagine what the fallout from Noah had been like, he'd heard the stories. It must have been ugly indeed to tear father and daughter apart as it did. He only hoped the two would find their way back one day.

The door opened to a smiling face, "Peter!" Claire pulled him forward into a hug. "I'm so glad you made it. Come on in."

He got the feeling that she had been worried he would back out. Ok, maybe he had thought about it. "Of course," he chuckled lightly, "Glad to be here." He looked around the room to find a comfortable and homey living area. The windows shown with sunlight and there was the smell of something baking. He didn't know why he thought that it would be dark and bleak. That Claire would look out of place like some princess held in a tower. But it was obvious this was her home and she was happy here.

"Come sit." She pulled him towards a pale green sofa. "You get all settled in?" she bounced down next to him.

"Yep," he nodded. "I'm going back to work at the hospital next week."

"That's great! I know how much you liked it there. I was a little worried that Angela would wrangle you to work at Primatech."

"Yeah, that's not going to happen. Not ever." He smiled and motioned with his head, "I like the place."

She beamed, "Really? We don't get many visitors, socially I mean. We like it, though. I change it around all the time. Sylar floats the furniture for me."

He had a hard time envisioning the supposedly reformed killer playing house but then he thought about the aborted future that he'd seen. Sylar had actually made a good and loving father. If he could do it then, he could do it now. He'd do what he could to help it happen. "So where is Sylar anyway? Hiding?"

Claire got this look on her face that told him he wasn't too far off the mark. Peter couldn't say he blamed the man actually. This was all so *down the rabbit hole* as far as he was concerned. It probably wasn't any more comfortable for Sylar. But he would find some common ground with the man even if it killed him and given who he was going to spend the day with… it just might.

"I'll go get him. He slept in," she explained then leaned over, giving him a light peck on the cheek. "Thank you," she offered lightly. "You have no idea what this means to me."

He took her arm as she moved away, "Are you happy?"

She smiled and took a deep breath, "I love him, Peter. I want this to work."

Peter's eyes widened. Well, that certainly raised the stakes. "That's all I need to know. Don't worry about me, Claire. I'll find a way to make this work. If you can love him that means there's something in him worth fighting for. Now you won't have to fight alone."

Her eyes teared up, "Have I told you lately how much I love you?"

"Yeah, yeah, go get that surly spouse of yours. We've got guy stuff to do," he smiled. What the hell were they going to do all day? Maybe he shouldn't have agreed to an all day affair but Claire had wanted the time to herself. How could he say no? But now, he was beginning to regret that blind compliance. The women had really put one over on the both of them.

The sound of footsteps made him turn to see Claire practically dragging Sylar by the arm into the room. The sight was so incongruous that he couldn't help but chuckle. The tiny cheerleader was prodding him, "You promised you were going to do this, I don't want to hear any shit. Please, just behave yourself for one day, one day, that's all I ask." She shoved him forward.

Peter stood and put his hands in his pockets. "Hey," he greeted.

Sylar nodded, "Hey."

The moment stretched... and stretched. Claire looked from one to the other then sighed, "Seriously?" She shook her head, "Both of you. Out of my house." Men were ridiculous. She pointed to the door.

Peter looked to Sylar, who simply shrugged. "Yeah, ok. Guess we should go," he offered.

"Whatever." Sylar followed along behind Peter as he headed to the door. He smirked in Claire's direction.

Peter tried lightening the mood, "I promise to have him back by supper."

Claire looked at her husband. "Whatever," she mocked, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Okkk then." He was just not going to get in the middle of this, whatever this was, not a chance. Women were weird.

As Sylar closed the door behind them she heard him remark, "What can you do? PMS."

PMSing? Grr. Of all the arrogant, smartass remarks… just wait. Claire headed to the kitchen to check on the garlic bread she'd been baking. I'm gonna kick his whiney *I don't wanna go with Peter* ass, she fumed. She grabbed an oven mitt, opened the oven door, and inhaled, "Mmm." It smelled wonderful. Then she, maybe, closed the oven door a little harder than necessary. She'd give him PMSing when he got home. Oh, yeah. Claire stopped up short in her rant, her frown deepened. She turned to the fridge and consulted her Hello Kitty calendar. Huh.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Oh My gosh...so I'm going over my stories and updating, updating, updating... and I'm really bad about re-reading and then going, "You know, I could add a lil sumthin sumthin, right there that would make it better..". And before you know it, I have a whole new chapter...which has happened here. I was never happy with the section of Sylar's internal monolog but I never did anything about it. But I have now. Basically, I have rewritten that entire section as well as altered a few other things in the first chapters... I HAVE NOT uploaded the new material yet. I did, however, get a little chappie out so I hope that's good until I can reload every single chapter that came before (ugh).