The finale was pretty interesting, but a little disappointing, too. Though I'm eager to see how decide to bring him back!
Oh, and by the way? You guys are too nice. I love you to death. :)
Takes place after An Invisible Thread
Claire's first thought upon realizing that Nathan was actually Sylar was precisely this: You son of a bitch, I am going to kill you with my own hands and watch you bleed on the floor.
Or, you know. Something along those lines.
Because honestly, there wasn't a moment of realization. There was just a general suspicion, and tiny little details that were hard to get right, even for her real biological father. So there was a part of her mind that was happy and eager and trusted Nathan completely, even as a different part was quite convinced that she was walking arm-in-arm with the serial killer she hated the most.
And anyway, she was doing so much plotting that there was no real time for personal things. She had many, many different paths of action figured out. What she would do if the Secret Service stopped them; how she would recognize if one of the nameless henchmen was Sylar in disguise; what she would say if her father called her in the middle of meeting with the president; etc, etc.
Of course, Nathan was having none of it. "You look tense, Claire," he said with a fond little smile, slinging an arm over her shoulder as they sat in the back of the taxi.
A part of her mind said: Take your hand off me, you filthy monster, and don't you dare look at me like that.
Her mouth said: "I'm fine, dad."
Claire's first thought upon seeing herself standing where Nathan had been before was precisely this: Damn it, I need to listen to my instincts more often.
It was a little bit hard to figure out exactly what she wanted to think next, since so much of her mind was devoted to fighting against the invisible threads that jerked her limbs and body back and forth, trying to make herself move, even just twitch of her own volition.
Claire (on the other side of the room) smiled and raised her eyebrows with a familiar, condescending little twitch. Claire found herself tossing the cell phone over to her mirror image, despite the furious raging that was going on in her mind. She found herself nearly boiling over in anger as Sylar snapped open the phone and answered it in just the tone of voice she would have used.
She also found herself making connections. No wonder Nathan had been acting so much touchier and more friendly- it wasn't Nathan at all, it was Sylar being a creep. That made a lot more sense.
What it didn't explain was why he had decided to take her along in the first place- but she figured that she was about to find out.
Claire's first thought upon hearing Sylar's proposal was precisely this: What. The. Hell.
"Are you…" she stared at him for a moment, for once not even caring that she couldn't move her head. "Are you seriously asking me—"
"Yeah." He grinned at her. Would it be overkill to call him a crazy psycho?
She wanted to say that she was only seventeen for crying out loud, not to mention how she had refused to ever get into politics and, besides, she hated his guts. Instead, she found herself saying, "and when did you decide to do this?"
"About…" he closed his eyes briefly. "Fifteen minutes and twenty-four seconds ago, when you called me out for writing with my left hand."
She didn't care if it was redundant. From now on, she would address him as You Crazy Psycho.
"Of course, I've been keeping an eye on you for far longer than that. You see, Claire," he continued patiently, "you are exactly what I need. You notice things, and you even fend for yourself. We'll make a great team."
Once he'd let go of his control over her mouth again (he kept doing that, freezing it shut while he was talking so she couldn't contradict him), she snapped. Just a little. "You- you, You Crazy Psycho, are the last person I'd ever ma- you are out of your mind, and I swear the first chance I get I am going to make sure that you die. Painfully." That didn't feel like enough, and he was just watching her with mild interest, so she continued. "You can say we're alike all you want but you're wrong, and I don't know how you've deluded yourself into thinking that you l- that you want anything from me, but I'll tell you right now that will you stop looking at me like that?"
His look of placid interest melted into a smile as he twitched his fingers to shut her mouth again. "You know, I'd be tempted to kiss you if I didn't think you'd just use the opportunity to bite."
Crazy Psycho.
"Besides-" suddenly, he flinched a little bit, perking one ear up. "And here comes Team Super. Don't worry, Claire. We'll continue this conversation later." He looked back at her for a moment, and there was something odd about that look that she just couldn't place (or maybe it was how he leaned forward a little bit, or how he briefly rested his hand on hers), but then she was flying through the air, out through the doors, and crashing into the wall.
From that point on, everything felt like a blur, except one important detail- when she tried to get back into the room, she couldn't open the doors. But that couldn't have been Nathan or Peter's doing.
Obviously, he was afraid of her. He didn't want her to help the others.
Or- said the little dissenting voice in the back of her head- he didn't want her to get hurt.
Claire's first thought upon hearing that Sylar was dead was precisely this: Good riddance.
Her second was: But, of course, they're wrong. He's Sylar. He never dies.
So she did spy work. She looked into the files her father wrote up. She questioned the others on the sly, carefully, snuck around to listen in on conversations (and got on Matt Parkman's nerves extensively in the process). Her result was- nothing.
Then, her next thought was: He's fooled them again. I'll have to be extra careful, keep an eye out, make sure I'm prepared when he next jumps out of the shadows.
Only then, they brought out the body. Burned it, with a bunch of them standing around to watch. Burned it until there was nothing left but ash. She still didn't quite believe it. But it really did seem like she was running out of other options.
So then she thought: Of course I'm upset. It's very upsetting to find out that they found a way around my power after all, that's all. I'm just used to feeling invulnerable.
Yeah. That was a good reason to have.
Claire's first thought when her father figured out that she was researching Sylar in her free time was precisely this: Well, at least he can't ground me.
"I just don't want to see you grow obsessed, Claire-bear," he said softly, sitting next to her on the bed and rubbing her shoulder. She could almost snort. He was the one who had been obsessed with Sylar in the past.
"I'm fine, Dad. Really." She smiled up at him. "I just… didn't get closure, I guess. It's weird to think that he's gone."
He shrugged. "Better than for him to still be here."
It's strange. He always acted so casual about it. Almost too casual.
It's sad that she couldn't even trust her father anymore.
Claire's first thought upon picking up a shirt her biological mother had given her when searching for a lost purse was precisely this: He burned.
She dropped the shirt without thinking, just stared into space and frowned. Had they stuck something in the back of his head? She couldn't remember seeing anything. And if he'd just been in a coma, burning wouldn't have done anything, he would've survived.
And maybe it was obsessive, but she really wanted to ask her father if they had taken any videos of it, just to make sure. She didn't want mistakes to happen. That was all.
"Claire, what's taking you so long?"
Well, she would ask later, anyway. Claire turned and smiled distractedly at Nathan, who was leaning on her doorframe, tapping his foot impatiently. Her biological father had decided to start spending more time with her in an effort to solidify their relationship, and they would go out for lunch together at least once a week. She had actually grown to tolerate him, with time. Though he tended to get really fuzzy on the subject of a certain deceased serial killer.
"Just a minute," she replied, nudging the shirt under her dresser with her foot and grabbing her second-favorite purse from the closet door. And, because it was still bugging her, she asked, "Hey, do you remember what we eventually killed Sylar with?"
Unlike her father and Angela and, okay, everyone else, Nathan never got annoyed when she started asking questions about Sylar. He just always got confused. "Huh. I'm not sure, Claire. You'd probably have to ask your father about that."
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "I'll try."
Claire's first thought upon realizing that Nathan was actually Sylar was precisely this: He healed.
Because he did. She had accidentally dropped her glass at the diner's table, sending shards of it flying across the table, a few of which stuck into his arm, but when he pulled them out, he healed.
Her second thought was slightly more confusing: Thank God.
Then, of course, she had to go into the tricky business of figuring out exactly why she was happy that Sylar was apparently still alive. And then she had to start wondering where Nathan actually was.
Sylar, on the other hand, had his own problems. "That's not my power," he said slowly, staring in great confusion at the pink skin that had formed over the cut. "That's… Claire, that's your power. Why do I have your power?"
It was then that Claire realized that things were much trickier than she'd first assumed.
(She also realized that she needed to give her father a good tongue-lashing. But. Not as important.)
"Sy- Nathan," she said hurriedly, "have you been feeling like yourself lately?"
He looked at her oddly, eyebrows angling in a way that Nathan's never had (God, how had she been so stupid?). "Funny that you should ask that. I have been feeling quite… off, lately." He frowned abstractly, his eyes wandering over to the ornamental clock placed in the corner of the room. "Mom's been asking about it, too."
She would need to give Angela a piece of her mind as well, then. But later. After she'd fixed this mess.
And it wasn't weird at all that she knew, without a doubt, that she had to get Sylar back.