A/N: Sorry about the wait. School has been taking over my life. :(

One Week Later

Claire reached through the cab's window and handed the cab driver her fee. The last few days had been pretty hectic, even by her standards, but it had also been one of the happiest weeks of her life. The 'M's' had moved out of their old apartment into a fairly large apartment in Manhattan. Currently only four people were living there, but everyone was fairly certain more would be moving there soon.

Claire pulled her coat tighter around her body as she quickly walked down the street towards the new building. She hadn't been expecting to arrive here alone. Elle hadn't come home last night after her date with Peter. Claire wasn't at all surprised, it had to happen sometime after all.

"Claire, wait up!"

Claire half turned and looked over her shoulder. She grinned at the sight of Matt carrying a paper bag. "What are you doing out and about?" She asked as Matt caught up to her. "Don't you have a housewarming to host?"

"Mohinder and Maya are doing good enough jobs at the moment." Matt said as he caught up to her. "And I forgot to pick up some stuff yesterday." He gestured at the bag and grinned.

Claire glanced up at Matt as they began walking towards the new apartment. "You look tired," she said as she noticed the bags under Matt's eyes. "What were you doing last night?"

"What you and West were doing a week ago." Matt grinned.

Claire raised one eyebrow, "Seriously?"

"Yeah, though I had a much harder time then you two did."

"Don't you feel a little bit guilty about prying into their relationship?"

"One could say that I was looking out for two friends." Matt paused at Claire's sceptical look and shrugged. "Okay, I don't feel guilty at all. Did you?"

"Yes. A little bit."

"Why am I not surprised?" Matt laughed as the two approached the automatic doors that led to the apartment complex.

Claire smiled in amusement. "Did they know they were being followed?"

"Nope," Matt grinned secretively. "Wanna hear how I did it?"

"Do I want to?"

"I didn't even have to leave the apartment." Matt said proudly, completely ignoring Claire's last sentence.

Claire was intrigued, "Your telepathy, right?"

"Right," Matt quickly strode ahead and held the door to the apartment complex open for Claire. "I was up 'till around three. They were out for a long time before they went back to Pete's place— I stopped then, just so you know."

Claire quickly thanked Matt as she walked through the door in front of him. "You better have, if Elle—or even Peter—found out that you were in their heads during the rest of the night, they'd slowly kill you."

Matt shrugged and grinned. "They didn't kill you."

"That's 'cause they like me better." Claire laughed at the pseudo-shocked look that appeared on Matt's face.

"That's not very nice, Claire." Matt said with exaggerated hurt in his voice. "I thought you were meant to be kind."

Claire laughed and playfully punched Matt on the arm. "I am!"

Matt laughed and turned a corner leading down a long hallway. Loud noises could be heard from one of the rooms down the end of the hall. As the two drew closer to the apartment, one of the other apartment doors opened and an old, angry looking man appeared in the hall.

"Noise, Parkman!" He said loudly.

Matt sighed and rolled his eyes. Claire noticed Matt's head cock to one side and the old man's eyes seemed to glaze over.

"Never mind, the noise level is perfectly quiet. I'm sorry for disturbing you." With that, the old man walked back into his apartment and closed the door.

"That's Mr. Jenkins." Matt explained and he glared at the freshly closed door. "If I had known we'd be moving next to someone like him, we wouldn't have."

"You used your mind thing, didn't you?" Claire said accusingly.

"It's the only thing that works!" Matt explained defensively. "Anyway, what's the point in having these abilities if we don't use them?"

"We should be using them to help people!"

"What is this: a T.V. show?" Matt rolled his eyes. "He won't know and the others won't know."

Claire sighed and let the issue go. It was a topic that had come up a lot in the past few years.

Matt reached out and grasped his apartment's door handle, balancing the bags haphazardly as he did so. Claire grinned at the sight and took one of the bags from Matt's grasp. Matt nodded in thanks and pushed down on the door handle.

Immediately the two were buffeted by laughter and cheerful voices. "Stay away from Molly." Matt warned with a playful smile. "She's a vulture."

Claire frowned at Matt's back as he entered the apartment. It took her a moment to realise what Matt was talking about, but as soon as she did, an amused grin appeared on her face. She'd forgotten about it over the past week, but it was obvious that none of the others had.

She glanced around quickly and began wandering around the apartment. It was a lot bigger then the old one, it had more then enough space for the four new occupants to spread out. Claire smiled to herself as she thought of the apartments new occupants: Matt, Mohinder, Molly and Maya. It was thanks to one of Elle's comments that the four had been grouped together and called the "M's".

"Hey, Pom-Pom!" A familiar girlish voice called out, immediately capturing Claire's attention. "Over here!"

Claire turned to the side and immediately caught Elle Bishop's gaze. She was gesturing at her furiously with a wide grin on her face. Claire grinned at Elle's childish nickname for her. She had tried to stop Elle from calling her that while she was supposedly "assimilating" to society. Nothing, however, had been able to stop Elle from calling her that.

"Haven't we been through this, Elle?" Claire joked as she always did whenever Elle called her Pom-Pom.

"Learn to love it." Elle grinned, saying what she always said when Claire brought up the subject of the nickname.

Claire smiled and shook her head slightly. "You didn't come home last night. I think that a lot of people are going to be disappointed, but one will be over-the-moon."

"Oh, she is." Elle said conversationally. "I think she's busy shaking-down your boyfriend at the moment." Elle grinned and looked at Claire cheekily. "So, do you wanna here about what happened?"

"No!" Claire said quickly as she tried to rid herself of the mental images that had been plaguing her whenever someone made the slightest allusion to the fact. "I don't even want to think about that!"

Elle laughed. "It's a beautiful thing, Pom-Pom. But, if you don't want to hear about it, that's fine with me. I wanna keep it to myself for a bit longer anyway. Just to let you build up anticipation."

"You mean dread."

Elle shrugged. "All depends on your perception."

"Where is Peter, anyway?" Claire asked in n attempt to move the subject away from Elle and her Uncle's relationship.

"Somewhere, I don't know. We're not exactly joined at the hip, you know." Elle let a small spark hit the tips of Claire's fingers as she finished her sentence to emphasis her point.

Claire winced and shook her tingling hand. That was one thing Elle hadn't been able to stop doing. She had never said that assimilating Elle would be easy. "I know your not. I didn't mean that."

"Yeah, I know." Elle grinned. "I just wanted to shock you a little." She chuckle at the incredulous look that appeared on Claire's face. "I think Peter's 'round the back with some of the others. Mohinder wanted to show him something about his DNA."

Claire said nothing and watched as Elle looked down and scuffed her shoes lightly on the floor. Claire knew that Elle didn't really fit in here; she didn't even get on with most of them. The only reason she was here was for Peter and that fact revealed just how far the woman had come.

She was just about to open her mouth and ask if Elle wanted to leave when Molly crossed through the kitchen and stood in front of them with a pleased smile on her face. "Hi, Claire," Molly said eagerly. "Did you hear?"

Claire took a quick sidelong glance at Elle and smiled back at Molly. "I did. Are you here to collect?"

Molly's grinned widened and she held out her hand. Claire noticed that Molly's pockets were stuffed full, probably from her winnings.

Claire shook her head in mock disappointment and pulled out the twenty-dollar bill she had put in her pocket earlier and handed it over to Molly. "Matt told me to avoid you, you know."

"I know." Molly giggled as she managed to shove the new bill into her pocket along with all of the others. "He got it from Claude this morning. Claude didn't wanna pay, but I think he forgot he can't hide from me."

Claire laughed. To her left, she heard Elle let out an amused chuckled.

Molly glanced at Elle and suddenly looked like she had just remembered something. "Oh, right." She exclaimed as she reached into one of her filled pockets and pulled out a fistful of cash. "Here's your cut."

Elle grinned and took the money from Molly's hand, "Pleasure doing business with you, Molly."

Molly grinned again and walked off, making a beeline towards Matt. Claire turned towards Elle and stared at her accusingly.

Elle only grinned and began absently flicking the bills. "I never claimed to be perfect, Claire."

Claire shook her head and smiled slightly in amusement. "You're unbelievable, you know that."

"Why, thank you, Claire." Elle winked as she pocketed the money. "I try."

Claire chuckled at Elle's response and turned her attention back to the apartment. She smiled in greeting as Peter emerged from the kitchen and approached them with a warm grin on his face.

"There's my girls." He addressed both of them as he leaned forward to kiss Elle. "Have you seen Molly yet? The kids been going up to everyone and getting money from them. Do you have any idea why?"

"Nope," Claire said quickly, barely managing to keep her face straight.

"Not a clue." Elle shook her head immediately after Claire.

Peter eyes them both suspiciously for a moment before he turned back to Elle. "Do you wanna get of here? I know that you didn't wanna be here."

Elle nodded eagerly and linked her arm through Peter's. She paused for a moment and a troubled expression appeared on her face. "We don't have to if you wanna stay a bit longer.

Peter shook his head and smiled. "Nah, I'm not really a fan of gatherings anyway."

"Okay." Elle smiled. Almost as an afterthought, she turned back and addressed Claire. "Do you wanna come along? We can watch One Tree Hill and laugh at Peter when he gets confused."

Claire laughed at Peter's mock-outraged exclamation of: "Hey" and shook her head. "No, I think I'll stick around a bit longer, I haven't seen everyone in a while."

Elle nodded. "Oh, well. You've gotta swing by later then, maybe even stop Peter from burning everything he cooks."

"You're the one who nearly set the apartment on fire when you though the stove was taking too long!" Peter retorted, earning him a light shock from Elle's fingertip.

Claire laughed and nodded. "Yeah, definitely, if only to stop you two ordering take-out."

Elle grinned back and surprised Claire by giving her a swift, but tight hug. "I'm glad you're my friend, Claire."

"Yeah, me too, Elle," Claire said as soon as her tongue began to work again.

"We'll see you later, then." Elle said as she turned back to Peter and began to lead him in the direction of the apartment's door.

"Yeah, see you." Claire called after her as she returned both Elle's and Peter's waves.

She watched silently as Elle and Peter left the apartment. Things weren't perfect, they never would be. But for the time being, Claire was content to play along with the fantasy.