Disclaimer: I do not own Heroes.
07 December, 2009
Monday found Claire waking to the shrill beeping of her alarm. She shivered beneath her covers, struggling to recall if she had set her alarm. No, she realized blearily, the last thing she remembered was blinking heavily watching Iron Man, curling closer to Sylar's warmth. Sylar. Claire jerked up in bed and looked around the room. He was gone.
Stifling a yawn, Claire appraised her room. She was firmly tucked in, the trash from their movie-day was gone, and Claire's computer was set neatly on her desk. The big, bad, Sylar had cleaned up her room and tucked her into bed. Glancing across the room Claire saw Gretchen's form wrapped under her blankets. Sylar must have left before Gretchen had returned for the night. Claire somehow doubted that the other girl would have let Claire sleep if she had found Sylar in bed with Claire.
Stretching her arms above her head, Claire yawned and slipped out of bed, her feet hitting the plush rug with a little thump. She went about her morning routine without a second thought, she had class early this morning, and, though it puzzled her how Sylar knew, Claire was thankful Sylar had been so thoughtful. That in itself was odd, thinking about Sylar as thoughtful was anything but normal.
Books gathered, hair brushed, warm scarf tied around her neck, Claire set about flipping her covers into a semblance of neatness. The crisp crinkling of paper made the young woman pause and pull back the sheets to find a slightly crumbled piece of paper folded into quarters. Smoothing it open Claire looked at the unfamiliar scrawl. It wasn't messy, it slanted slightly and the letters were angled, almost as if they had been stretched vertically. Sylar, Claire figured.
The letter was brief, awkward sounding. It was a promise of seeing her later that day. Claire refolded the note, the few brief lines already trapped in her mind, before tucking the note into her desk drawer.
Dropping down into her seat in her biology class Claire watched as her twenty-something peers filtered in, sitting and extracting notebooks and textbooks from satchels and bags.
"Good morning," Professor Sorenson greeted. "Today we will be looking at the consequences of evolution. Darwin posited that: Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." He paused, flicking on the projector, the quote glowing into life on the board. "What did Darwin mean?"
Claire breathed, "Evolution is a process brought upon by the questions nature asks. Does the new characteristic have value? Does it represent progress? Will it benefit the species? Darwin believed there was beauty in the ability to change as the world did."
"Precisely, Miss Bennet," the man crowed. "Darwin observed adaptation first hand. Now, imagine you could decide which characteristic you would adopt in order to better your survival chances, consider the questions Miss Bennet put forth."
"Regeneration," one of the boys near the front of the room called. "If we could regenerate skin, fluids, even limbs, we wouldn't face death."
The professor nodded. Claire shook her head, "That would cause more problems than solutions."
"Go on," the professor encouraged, intrigued by the young woman before him.
"Resources are limited. We already fight about oil, beliefs, food. Imagine if you had seven billion people in the world eating, drinking, breathing, and more being born every day. Population increases," Claire finished.
"And what only a small percent of the species acquired that adaptation," the professor suggested.
Claire sat up, her face sad, "Those who adapted would be ostracized. We fear what we don't know. We envy what we don't have." She didn't say what she was really thinking. How lonely it was, how lonely it would be to be alone, forever. Every day Claire lived with this adaptation, the light in her life dimmed, but now, the pinprick was getting bigger. She wouldn't be alone forever, she would have him.
The professor nodded, "The unpleasant side of the grandeur that Darwin spoke of. The dangers of the first steps of adaptation, of evolution. The introduction of anything new begets skepticism and fear. Consider cell phones, microwaves, even cars."
Another student frowned, hand raised in the air, "But evolution is necessary, isn't it?"
"Yes," the professor agreed, "however, we must consider that in our history, an admittedly violent and skeptical history, how we have reacted to change. If we condemn adaptations, can we then develop and adaptation of not adapting?"
The room was quiet, it was unthinkable. The professor chuckled softly. "I fear I've become a little excited by the topic."
As her classmates filtered out of class, Claire hung back as her professor asked. He waved her closer frowning as he did, bracing his hands on the podium. "Your words reminded me greatly of a colleague that I met at a conference, he asked those very questions."
"Oh," Claire swallowed. She hadn't thought about the words being recognized, Chandra Suresh had been cast out of academia for the most part. Mohinder was seen as much the same, a man who had lost sense of reality.
Sorenson licked his lips, "Dr. Suresh was very interested in the next state of human evolution. The ability to fly, become invisible, move things with our minds. It was fantastical, right of the comic books. His theory was…it went a step too far, I think. I think you understand better than he, the problems with society that limit our ability to accept the next step. You might want to consider this paradox for your thesis."
"I'll think about it," Claire nodded. "Thanks." She hurried off, not interested in continuing the conversation, of having to go deeper, not when her own fate was becoming clearer and clearer with each day.
The door slipped shut with a hollow clang. Claire took a step forward, haltingly took another and another. Her boots clicked on the flagstone floor, the sound echoing loudly. She kept walking, past the busts set on stands, paintings hung on the wall, and the vases set behind glass.
There, near the far wall facing a hazy painting of an orange sun blazing against gray water stood a familiar figure.
"Sylar," she called with a little smile.
"Claire," he didn't turn to face her but the smile was evident in his voice.
So she stepped up beside him, tilting slightly to nudge him, "So feeling like getting your art on?"
"Well," Sylar hedged, "I dabbled, I wasn't a fan of the trances."
"Issac," Claire identified, "you never dabbled before?"
He shook his head, "I never found anything worth drawing."
"And now," Claire pushed.
The dark haired man looked down at the pixie-like blonde, "I don't know, I haven't tried in some time. Maybe we should give it a whirl, what do you say, Claire? Will you model for me?"
She giggled, "Really?"
"I'm going to kill you," Claire growled, lacking the anger and vehemence of some of her previous threats. Sylar had checked them into a five-star hotel and quickly arranged Claire and his supplies just so.
"You agreed to this," Sylar informed the young woman dispassionately as he leaned around a canvas propped on a tripod.
Claire rolled her eyes and readjusted the sheet she had clutched to her chest, "I thought this would be more clothed."
A small smile slipped onto Sylar's face as he watched Claire. She stood on a chair, her back almost facing him, her head angled to face over her shoulder, eyes watching him draw. Her left hand was curled up against her chest keeping the sheet in place as it draped down her golden skin, the long expanse of her spine uncovered, the swell of her bottom curving to hide beneath the white cloth.
"You're beautiful Claire, you always look beautiful," Sylar set down the charcoal he was sketching with and stepped around the canvas, advancing towards the posing woman.
Claire jumped as he stepped up to her, she steadied herself and glared down at him. He grinned, and under the guise of adjusting her pose, Sylar traced her curves. He was gentle with his touch, fingers skimming along the slender curve of her bicep, the sharp turn of her elbow, the dip of her spine, the rotation of her hips, and the tilt of her head.
She was perfect, golden and strong and warm. She melted under Sylar's touch, her heat warming every inch of him.
He stepped away abruptly, intimately aware of the lines and boundaries he was breaking and pushing. As much as he wanted Claire, Sylar was not going to risk pushing Claire. He returned to the canvas, deliberately picking up the charcoal again and putting it to the paper.
"Hold still," Sylar breathed under his breath, "I'm almost finished."
A/N: 7/25. A bit of fluff here. I figure Claire needed to have some College experiences and a reminder about the importance of connecting with Sylar.