Thanks to everyone that has left reviews so far. The last chapter had 14 alone which is a new record for me. There was a question that I missed answering in the last chapter so - yes, Claire does know about Gabriel's ability to take powers without killing. We're starting to get into the events of Six Months Ago so the story is really going to be boiling soon.

March 19, 2006

"Gabriel?" Virginia Gray wandered out of the bathroom with a damp towel and spray bottle of Clorox to clean up with. Silence was her only answer. "Gabriel?" she called out again into the vacant apartment. Tools and parts were left scattered on the floor of the kitchen by the sink alongside drying droplets and spatters of blood. Gabriel and Claire had disappeared so quickly that his usually meticulous compulsions for perfect order were forgotten. "What on Earth has that girl done to my son? I know I taught him better than this." Virginia proceeded to fetch a pair of canary yellow rubber gloves and knelt to scour away the abandoned mess, grumbling under her breath the whole way about trouble making harlots.

Claire didn't dare to breathe a word as Gabriel pulled her out into the street, or even when he hailed the cab to take them home. The ride back to his apartment went by in silence punctuated by sideways eye flickers of deadly curiosity, the tension between the couple so thick in the air that not even their driver felt courage enough to break it. Once outside the door, Gabriel's neighbor, Steve, made a brief appearance while keys were being fumbled about in the lock. The other man started to open his mouth, probably making with the typical snarking commentary that normally accompanied his presence, but one gaze of lingering severity from Gabriel had him quickly closing his trap again and retreating into the safety of his own home.

He didn't loosen or release his vice-like grip on her arm until Claire's backside forcefully hit the couch. Gabriel's eyes naturally tracked the dissolution of color in her skin, the dark purple bruising from where his hand had clamped down on her gently fading to a light yellow and then disappearing altogether. If it was even possible by that point his pupils widened even more until all traces of brown had sunk into a deathly black hue. He seized the hand that had been the victim of his mother's garbage disposal and all cognitive thought focused on the lack of maimed flesh. His fingers traced over the contours of the hand, repeatedly running over the criss-crossed patterns of previous injury. He bent her hand in every direction at every possible angle to check for issues of alignment as he had done earlier, growing more and more frustrated with each passing minute of futility. "How? How did you do it?"

She swallowed thickly and summoned her most innocent voice through the hard chunk of nerves blocking her throat. "Do what?"

"You should be missing half of your hand. But you're not. How did you do it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm fine. Nothing -"

"Don't." Gabriel's voice dropped in warning and he held her pinned in place by the hypnotic power of his intent focus on her alone. Every muscle in his body was ripe with fresh blood flow and coiled strength, poised to strike in a flash like some poisonous serpent after its prey. "I heard it, Claire." He looked over the specks of blood covering his upper arms, a few flecks remaining on his face, and the smear across the chest of his white undershirt. "This is your blood," he viciously accused, yanking the stained shirt he had turned into make-shift bandaging from her grasp. She flinched having forgotten that she had kept the soaked cloth clutched tightly like a lifeline. "And I heard the bone snap, Claire. How did you do it?" he asked clearly enunciating each word with an acidic tone, leaning in until they were nearly nose to nose.

All of the warning bells and whistles took control of her body and Claire reacted the only that she knew how when facing the feral entity that lurked beneath Gabriel's surface. Instinct.

With her heart hammering in her chest she aimed a sharp foot in the vicinity of his groin and rolled to the side before Gabriel could collapse on top of her. Claire darted into the bedroom while he was muttering curses in the sofa cushions and slammed the door behind her, twisting the lock. She dashed to the night stand, ripped open the top drawer to retrieve her revolver from its hiding place and braced herself to shoot when he came in after her.

"Claire," he called out to her from the other side of the barrier. She could barely make out the sound of her would-be nightmare hitting the floor with a dull thud and more garbled curses. Straining her ears, she could hear him half crawling, half stumbling his way to the bedroom door until he had dragged himself to lean up against it. "Claire, open the door." A loud bang sounded like he had struck the wood with a fist in irritation. "Claire… Please…"

A warm droplet landed on her hand. She looked down to see the shining metal of her gun trembling in her hands, breaking open the dam for the flood waters to flow freely. Claire grit her teeth against her moment of weakness and tucked her weapon into the back of her jeans. Through the haze of tears she managed to pry the window open and climbed her way out onto the fire escape with Gabriel's pleas still ringing in her ears.

Stepping off the rickety steel ladder onto the street below, Claire wiped her tears away and began walking without any particular destination in mind. Distance from Sylar was all that mattered. She cast one backward glance over her shoulder to the apartment and life that she was leaving behind, and that one singular pause in time was all that it took for life to capture her surprise again. A pair of dark skinned hands reached out from nowhere to cover her mouth and pull her into the shadows of an alley way.

The hand strangling the sound of the scream in her throat flinched away just before her teeth could sink into it and the other whirled her around to reveal none other than the Haitian holding up a finger for quiet. "René? You scared the hell out of me!"

"Your father wanted me to keep watch over you while he is away."

"How did you know? Wait, I don't even want to know," she sighed, waving away the thought and running a hand through distressed hair. "Where is he now?"

"Texas. Protecting you from exposing your ability."

"Jackie…" The memory of squabbling with her old high school friend over her cheerleading uniform flitted through her mind. God, that feels like someone else's life now. And then the memory of having to watch helplessly as the girl's skull was torn open in the halls of Union Wells High gathered over her head like a storm cloud. She had just escaped that monster for another time as impotent to stop him as ever. "We should get out of here. It won't take very long for him to figure out that I'm not in there anymore."

"Should I call your father?"

Claire paused, thinking over the prospect of what she would have to tell Noah and the inevitable order for her mission's termination that would follow. "No. Not yet. He'll be back soon enough." The Haitian nodded with his own brand of sympathetic understanding. She would need however much time she could spare to gain the resolve she would need to kill the man that she had grown to love. "Let's go back to the hotel."

"Claire? Please open the door," Gabriel pleaded, stroking the wooden surface in remorse. "I'm sorry. I'll never ask about what happened again, I promise. I don't even care anymore. Please… just talk to me." He had spent over an hour babbling to the door already and after a few more minutes of cold silence he sighed before leaving to get a case of tools. He jumbled the lock around with a set of precision screw drivers until the tumblers gave way and the bedroom door swung open.

"Claire?" Gabriel's heart sank at the sight of emptiness, the curtains waving gently in the breeze from the open window. "I'm sorry."

March 20, 2006

Claire lay sprawled out on her hotel bed surrounded by shuffled Primatech files and old surveillance photos of Gabriel Gray. She had done everything in her modest power to submerse herself in the mission documents again, trying to gain back the mindset that she had started out with. The desire to destroy her nemesis. The want to end his life. But after having known who he was before the hunger came creeping out there was no way back to that place that she needed to be in anymore. When she watched his life play out in the pictures around her all she could see was Gabriel, the subdued, introverted watch maker that numbered the bottom of his socks so that they would always match. The adorkable guy that could quote every word of Paul Valery, but didn't have the slightest clue who half the people featured in her magazines were. The devoted son and sweet lover that occasionally laughed at inappropriate intervals during horror movies, and who was always interested in whatever she had to say, even when it didn't make sense to him. The tall and muscular man with thick, dark hair that she could run her fingers through forever and could make her… queasy. Claire's stomach turned over with excessive amounts of stress.

Why? Why did I have to get my hand caught like that? It's not like me and a garbage disposal don't spell out potential disaster or anything… So stupid.

She had gotten over confident and dropped her guard. Too comfortable in the life that they had been living together. In spite of their recent Primatech related hijinx it had been the most normal that Claire had been allowed to feel in years and it had blinded her to the possibilities of being discovered.

A light knock sounded at her door and Claire jumped up to answer it. "René?" She cracked it open an inch and looked out for the identity of her visitor. Who else should have been standing there than the one person in all the world that she wished to avoid? Apparently she didn't even have to speak of him. Aimless thoughts were enough to bring the devil to call.

Claire slammed the door shut again and flipped the dead bolt to a locked position. "Claire… Please. I'm sorry," Gabriel begged from the other side. "Please just talk to me."

She hurriedly looked around the room and zipped about to collect all of the pictures and files, stuffing them under the bed in a moment of panic before returning to the door. Claire unlocked it and cracked it open just enough to see a sliver of Gabriel still standing there appearing pathetically downtrodden with nervously fidgeting hands. With a heavy sigh she opened the door all the way so that he could come in and crossed to the other end of the room without turning her back to him. "Claire, I -"

"Don't come any closer," she warned, signaling him to stop in his approach when he wanted to follow her movements. Gabriel's eyes anxiously flickered to the revolver that was resting on the table beside her bed, a single pace from her reach.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he promised, jamming his hands into his pockets and shuffling his feet uneasily. A solid minute passed in silence before he found the nerve to speak again. "I, um… I brought your car back. We left it outside of Virginia's yesterday." The ghost of past events passed between them in a pregnant pause.

"Claire, I'm sorry," he blurted out. "I, um… I know that there was no excuse for me to act like that. You have every right to be mad at me… And never talk to me again. I just wanted you to know…"

His eyes hovered about his shoes and she eventually allowed her arms to uncross and fall to her sides. It felt like there was an invisible wall separating them and only she could be the one to break it.

Love is being stupid… together.

"About yesterday…" she started, trying to plot out the words that could either give them a second chance or finish it all for good.

"You don't have to tell me anything. I don't even want to know anymore," he declared passionately not wanting to disturb any chance at peace between them.

"Gabriel… I need to show you something." She pulled out a pocket knife and flicked open the blade. Carefully watching his eyes open wide in shock, Claire drew the length of the knife across her arm until a decent sized tear in the skin appeared and bright red blood flowed from the wound.

"Claire! What are you doing?" he started to approach her again but stopped dead in his tracks witnessing the blood come to a halt before his vary eyes. Intricate muscles wove themselves back together and the skin knitted itself back into place until a light pink stretch of flesh faded into the same golden tan as the rest of her arm.

He took a rigid step in her direction and Claire stopped him again. "Don't come any closer." She watched him watching her, studying one another as she tested his control. As before the hunger reared its ugly head from behind his eyes, triggering the darkening of his chocolate pools and she could almost feel the way his skin crawled to get to her. To understand. But he remained as still as a living statue, clearly struggling to obey her command, but succeeding with only minor falter. And then the hunger too faded away.

"I'm not -" Gabriel shook his head to clear away the haze, his eyes slowly returning to color and his pulse subsiding. "I'm not going to hurt you, Claire." Sensing that he was sure of his words, she allowed him to come to her side. His fingers traced over the area where the cut had been, carefully inspecting for any evidence of damage in disbelief. "That is…"

"Freaky?"

"Incredible."

"Do you want to try?" He looked up at her in question so she handed him the pocket knife and flipped her palm upright in a gesture of trust.

"No. No. I, um…"

"It's okay. Go ahead."

"Doesn't it hurt?"

"I can't feel pain." Gabriel's eyebrows drew together in deep thought. He seemed to want to reject her offer again, but his curiosity was overwhelming. Timidly, he took the tip of the pocket knife and pressed it into her skin. He glanced up at her for any reaction of pain or wrongdoing on his part, but at her answering look of encouragement he drew his own line across the width of her hand, watching in concentrated fascination as the injury healed within seconds.

"So this is your big secret?"

"What do you mean?"

"I knew you were keeping something from me. I just kind of hoped that maybe you would trust me enough to tell me someday. But this… I never thought it would be anything like this… In retrospect I think I can understand why you wanted to keep it secret though." He took a seat on the end of her bed and rubbed at his eyes as though he could make some kind of grand illusion go away. "I guess that explains a few things," he spoke more to himself than to her while giving her a speculative once over.

"Yeah," Claire agreed quietly with a light blush coming into her cheeks.

"I always knew you were…"

"Different?"

"Special." He quirked a shy smile at her. "I, um…" a mild chuckle escaped him. "I had no idea just how special you really are though." She took a seat beside him and dropped her hands into her lap wondering where they were supposed to go from there.

"Are there others? Like you?"

"Yes… Well, not like me, but there are other people out there that can do stuff. As far as I know there's only been one other person that could heal like me." He nodded in quiet contemplation, absorbing the startling information much better than any other person that had ever found out about her before.

"So… can you heal from anything?"

"Pretty much. I guess I'll just keep regenerating forever. I'll never be able to get old or… Someone," meaning you, "told me once that I wasn't like the others. That I was different. That I can never die." Claire caught herself hoping that he didn't notice the deep tone of sadness that her voice had taken without permission. "Permanently anyways," she added with an awkward smile in hopes of bringing some levity to the conversation. "I've done the short term a few times."

"Wow. I guess that means that someday you'll be the one who's too old for me." Her eyes flashed to his in surprise only to find well meant mischief and a genuine smile waiting for her. She playfully shoved at his shoulder and he nudged her back with a laugh before meeting another moment of tense seriousness.

"You said that you couldn't feel pain. At all?"

"Not physical pain."

Gabriel reached out to tuck a rogue lock of her hair behind an ear and let his finger tips drift over the skin of her temple and cheek. "Can you feel that?"

"Yes." And there he was, giving her that same look of awe as he had that day in the car, like he had somehow managed to stumble across some long lost treasure of wonder. Her heart fluttered when he slowly leaned in to lightly press their lips together. Before Claire could remember any semblance of self control her fingers were lacing in his hair and they were falling backward onto the mattress. She swung her leg around to straddle him, giving in to the moment with complete abandon, but then he groaned with discomfort at the contact.

"Sorry," he grunted when she stopped. "Still not feeling too, uh… romantic yet."

She pulled a face at the memory of having caused him harm in the vicinity of his body that she was interested in at the time earning her a forgiving chuckle. "Maybe later tonight," he added, brushing his palm against her jaw and down the slope of her neck. "If you to want to come home."

Home. "That sounds nice." Claire released him from the pinned position and walked him to the door.

"I'll probably be working late tonight. Since I haven't been in the shop for almost a week I've got a lot to catch up on. I'll try to get back early enough for dinner though."

"Okay." They shared a lingering goodbye kiss before he stepped out.

Turning back after a few steps he smiled and mentioned, "I missed you last night."

"I missed you too."

Gabriel sat quietly amidst the rhythmic ticks and tocks of his shop attempting to focus on his work, but however hard he tried his thoughts kept returning to Claire and all the things that they had talked about that afternoon. His mind wandered from the time piece in his hands again and he sighed, leaning back in his chair. When his eye caught the Sylar Field Edition replica on the edge of his work table he picked it up and turned it over in his fingers a few times. It had become a bit of a symbol in some ways of the girl that had brought it to him and the life path that she had started him on. He wasn't just dull Gabriel Gray anymore. He had a purpose. He was special, even if it was only to one other person.

He unscrewed the back of the watch and looked into the intricate inner workings as they functioned in perfectly timed synchronizations. It was complicated and full of layers that had to be pried apart before reaching the core, a mystery. Just like her.

The more I learn about her, the less I understand. But the more I want to. His musings about the strange young woman brought a smile to his face and a quiet laugh which were interrupted by the opening of the shop's door. Gabriel was thankful that he had thought to bring his table out from its hiding place in the back of the work room. Since he had removed the bell from above the entrance it had been difficult to hear customers coming in and he might have missed the business otherwise, especially since he had technically been closed for nearly an hour.

"Can I help you?" he addressed the older gentlemen with grayed hair.

"I hope so, Mr. Gray," he answered with an expectant expression that bordered an eager smile. The man approached him with a book tucked under his arm, but it was the watch on his wrist that captured Gabriel's attention. It practically screamed at him for care, being out of sync with the rest of the clocks inhabiting the shop.

"I can fix it," he noted absent mindedly, moving to remove the piece from the visitor's wrist.

"My watch isn't broken."

"Actually it is." It ticked again out of time and the internal perfectionist in his nature twitched. The man gave him another odd look of unspoken expectations, but relented, handing the watch over. He watched with a faint smile as Gabriel lifted the piece to his ear to listen. Every part became a visual entity in his mind, twisting together and overlapping into a greater whole that could tell him exactly what it needed to work. "The self-winding coil is loose. Your watch is running two seconds slow."

"How did you know?"

"Just a talent I have for the way things work. How the parts should go." Gabriel took one of his precision screw drivers and began to gingerly pull the backing away so that he could tend to the problem.

"That looks rather complicated," his visitor noted with a gesture towards the Sylar watch that had been set to the side.

"That, oh, the body is standard but the parts, the insides, are German. 1917. I worked on it for seven years." Gabriel let a stunted laugh of triumph escape him once he had successfully tightened the erroneous coil and handed the watch back to the man at his side.

"How much do I owe you?"

"Oh, please, don't worry about it." He half expected the man to turn and leave as any other customer would, but the stranger remained, hovering. The man just kept standing there looking at him as if he were waiting for some kind of event to occur. Something tickled in the back of his mind that told him his visitor wanted much more from him than a simple repair for his time piece. "You didn't come here for the watch."

"I came to find you, Gabriel," he announced with a certain amount of pride that caught his attention and held it. Gabriel rose to his feet, curious and perhaps a bit anxious with the surprise. "My name is Chandra Suresh. I'm a geneticist. I have a theory about human evolution and I believe you are a part of it." Suresh handed him the book that had been resting underneath his arm. Gabriel glossed over the cover, the title of Activating Evolution peaking his interest. "Read it. If you'd like to talk more you'll find my phone number and address inside."

Without another word the scientist departed from the store leaving the watch maker hopelessly confused. Gabriel flipped through the pages of the book until he came to rest on a page that gave examples of potential super human abilities that were a product of the natural course of human evolution.

She said there were more of them, he thought to himself as he read a brief description of an ability called Telekinesis. And Suresh thinks that I could be one of them…

Gabriel remembered his words to Claire, promises that he could work harder and be more. It hadn't escaped him in the least bit that she had never really answered his impromptu marriage proposal, but at the time he had just been worried that it had been too soon, or that she didn't believe he could ever be enough for her. He hadn't brought it up again fearing that he would push her away but after the afternoon's conversations… Gabriel had realized that he really wasn't enough for her. Until just then.

I could be like her. I could be special too. I can show her that I can be good enough…

He didn't have to simply hope that she would genuinely love him and stay. He could make her.

To be continued...