LONDON, ENGLAND

"How is our patient today?"

"He's doing remarkably well, considering everything of course. It hasn't been easy, but I have managed to keep all his vitals at a controlled level. Also, the bleeding has mostly stopped." The nurse reported, checking over the notes she had been taking. "Depending on how long Mr. Oakland chooses to keep him in this state, I believe he could be fully recovered within the week."

"Excellent news, Sasha. Please keep me updated."

"Will do, Mr. Philmore, sir." Sasha, the nurse, smiled as Mr. Philmore left the room leaving her, once again, alone with the patient. After a few moments a beeping alerted Sasha to a decrease in the patient's heart rate. She frowned briefly and then placed the palm of her right hand over his heart and shut her eyes in concentration. It took a little longer than she liked, undoubtedly due to his troubled state of mind, but after a minute or two the emergency beeping ceased and his heart rate had returned to normal. She smiled at her talented success and then sat in the chair she had set up beside his bed. "Don't worry Gabriel, I'm taking good care of you. The nightmares won't last forever, I promise."

NATHAN & HEIDI PETRELLI

WASHINGTON DC

"Sweetheart, are the boys ready?" Nathan stood at the bottom of the steps, hollering up to his wife.

Heidi's head poked around the corner and she frowned. "If you're in such a rush, maybe you'd like to help out a bit."

He smiled at her apologetically. "Actually, I just remembered that I've got to make a quick phone call. Take your time! I'm sorry I've been rushing you." She disappeared back into the boys' room where she was helping them pack up their things, and Nathan retreated to his office.

He knew this day was coming and he had almost tricked himself into believing that he was ready for it, but now, he wasn't so sure. The past week that he had spent with his family in DC had almost been relaxing, which was a nice change from the fast-pace year they had been forced to endure with the campaign. Even though he had spent the majority of his time with other members of congress, he still managed to have some peaceful time with his family in the evenings.

When the week was up, he had planned to confess everything to his wife that he hadn't told her yet, in particular the truth about his daughter. Now that the time had come though, he suddenly lost all nerve. He needed to talk to someone who could understand what he was going through, and help him figure out how best to tell Heidi about Claire. The only person that came to his mind was his brother and so he shut the door to his office for privacy and dialed Peter's cell.

"Hello?" Peter answered the phone after the second ring and Nathan could tell that he was laughing.

"Hey, Pete, it's me!"

"Oh! Hey, hold on a sec." Peter paused and Nathan heard beep and then his brother returned. "Hey, now you're on speaker!"

"Why?"

"So we both can hear you." Peter explained simply. "Claire, come here, Nathan's on the phone."

Nathan winced. He hadn't even considered the possibility of Peter being with Claire at that moment. Definitely bad timing. "Claire's with you?"

"Yea. You're actually lucky to have caught her, she's on her way out in a few minutes." Peter told him. "She has a date."

"Peter shut up!"

Nathan unintentionally smiled at the sound of his daughter's voice. He had been trying to keep in touch with her daily over the week, but he hadn't talked to her now since the day before yesterday and he was surprised at how much he had missed their conversations. "Wait a minute, did Peter say 'date'?"

"Yes I did." Peter confirmed, laughing once again.

"God, you can be such a jerk!" Claire accused. "It's not really a date, Nathan, it's just, umm…"

"A date." Peter finished for her.

"It's a meeting over dinner…" Claire was clearly fishing for a believable story.

"Who with?" Nathan demanded. He couldn't remember ever feeling this protective of anyone before. It was a strange sensation for him to experience.

"His name's Jaden, and he's really nice."

"He's way too old for her." Peter was interrupting again. "He's a doctor."

"A doctor? How old is this guy?" Nathan wanted to know.

"Not that old…" Claire hesitated.

"Claire…"

"Twenty-one." She confessed finally. "He's only an intern."

"Which is way too old for a seventeen year old girl!" Peter persisted.

"It is not." Claire argued.

"Is too."

Nathan rolled his eyes at his brother's immaturity at that moment. "Kids, can I say something?" He intervened.

"Sorry." They mumbled in unison, instantly ceasing their spat.

"What were you calling for Nathan?" Peter asked.

"Well, actually I wanted to talk with you about something…sort of privately…but if now isn't a good time…"

"No, it's fine. Claire go away." Peter laughed briefly and then gasped: "Ouch! Nathan she hit me! You've got to teach your daughter some better manners."

"Hey Nathan, when are you coming home? Peter's driving me crazy!" Claire piped up again.

"Home?" Nathan frowned. "Where are you?"

"What do you mean? I'm at your house of course." Claire answered slowly.

"You are?" Nathan panicked.

"Yea…I've been here all week. Peter said that he cleared it with you!"

"Oh?'

"I never really got around to it." Peter explained quickly. "But I didn't think you'd mind, I mean they were all crashed in that hotel, and I figured this big house was just sitting here all empty…"

"They?" Nathan cut him off. "Is it more than just you and Claire?"

"Well, yea. I couldn't just bring her by herself. That would have been incredibly rude of me. Besides, the kids are sort of attached to Claire."

"Kids? Pete, who all is there?"

"Just the group of us that you saw at the hospital." Claire told him. "You know, Dr. Suresh, Molly, Micah, and his mom."

"Niki?" Nathan nearly shouted. "You brought her to my house?" Oh god, now I'm going to have to explain even more to Heidi. She's never going to forgive me.

"How do you know Niki?" Claire asked quickly.

"I ran into her in Vegas once. I don't really know her." He lied partially.

"Oh, well, she's really nice! I think you'd like her."

"I'm sure I would." Nathan felt a migraine forming behind his right temple.

"Don't worry, we won't stay here." Claire told him suddenly. "Peter told us you were okay with it and that you wanted us here…I should have known he was lying. He does that."

"I do not." Peter protested.

"Claire, I do want you there." Nathan assured her. "I just hadn't really expected to have a whole household to come home to. I'm not sure how I'll explain everyone to my family…"

Peter let out an irritated sigh. "Blame me. Just tell Heidi that I had some friends who needed a place to crash and I offered your house since you were gone."

"We're leaving in ten minutes to come home though!" Nathan told him. "The house won't be empty for very long."

"Come on Nathan, I can't just put them all out on the street." Peter whined. "It'll be fine. You still have your bedroom, and the boys still have theirs. Molly's been sharing the room that mom set up for Claire a couple weeks ago, Niki and Micah have the guest room…" He paused.

"What about Dr. Suresh?"

"He can stay with me at my place."

"I don't think this is a good idea, Pete. Heidi's still getting used to you and me having special abilities. I don't know how she'll take a whole house of strangers with powers."

"So don't tell her." Peter decided.

"I'm tired of lying to my wife." Nathan sighed. "In less than an hour she'll know the truth about Claire, I don't think it's a good time to start up a whole new lie."

"You're going to tell her?" Claire gasped. "Really?"

"I told you I would." Nathan reminded her. "I've just been waiting for the right time. And now that we're returning to New York, I think it's time."

"Wow."

"Though, I don't know how she'll take it Claire. I want her to accept you as readily as I have, but you have to understand that it won't be easy for her to get used to."

"I know." Claire responded. "I don't expect her to welcome me as her own daughter or anything like that." She was quiet for a moment. "Don't worry Nathan, when you get home I won't be here."

"Claire…" Nathan hesitated.

"No, she's right Nathan. Heidi will need her space. I'll take Claire home with me. If you want to see her, or if Heidi wants to see her, just call." Peter decided.

"And as for the others…"

"I'll send them back to a hotel." Peter assured him. "You're house will be empty when you get back."

"Thanks Pete." Nathan smiled. "I better go now. I hear Heidi and the boys coming down the stairs."

"Bye!" Peter and Claire chimed in together.

"Bye." Nathan hung up the phone and shut his eyes for a moment. He hadn't been able to discuss the situation with Peter, but after hearing Claire, he realized that he didn't need to talk to anyone. He knew that he had to tell Heidi. Claire was too important for him to ignore any longer, and realizing that gave him all the confidence that he needed.

JADEN & CLAIRE

NEW YORK

"Sorry I had to cancel last night." Claire apologized again to Jaden as they waited for their dinner to be served at the Italian restaurant that he had chosen.

"It's fine Claire, really. You keep apologizing, but I told you that I understood and I do!" He assured her. "I think it's nice how important your family is to you."

Claire smiled. She was supposed to have had dinner with Jaden the night before, but had to cancel when she received a phone call from her dad and mom back in Texas. She hadn't talked to her family since she had left Mr. Bennett at the hotel, and she had been missing them so much she had preferred to stay in and talk to them for almost two hours, rather than join Jaden for dinner. Of course Jaden didn't realize that he had been cancelled on for a phone call, since he thought she lived with her parents in the city.

"Besides, tonight makes up for it, right?" Jaden reminded her.

She nodded, and felt her neck blushing at the way he stared at her. Since they failed coffee date at the hospital a week ago, Jaden and Claire had already met twice more for coffee and had lunch once. This was their first dinner, which Niki had told her was a very important date. Niki had even helped Claire with her hair and makeup for the occasion. And Claire felt beautiful, but she also felt more nervous than she had ever felt in her life. Jaden wasn't like all the boys she'd dated in high school. He was mature, and sophisticated and he made her feel older than only seventeen. Making a good impression on him was very important to her.

"So what haven't we discussed yet?" Jaden started up the conversation.

"We haven't talked about you much." Claire pointed out. "We always seem to be talking about me."

"That's because I'm convinced that you're much more interesting than I am!"

"For you maybe, but I'm bored of myself." She smiled.

"Fair enough." He returned her smile. "What do you want to know?"

"Well, for starters, where'd you go to medical school?"

"NYU." He answered simply.

"Really? That's a hard school!"

"Tell me about it."

"Okay, since you're clearly not the easiest guy to pull information out of, I'll just have to ask a lot of questions." She smiled. "You mentioned before that you traveled a lot. Tell me about that."

"What do you want to know?"

She rolled her eyes. "I don't know. Something interesting. Where've you been? What'd you do? That sort of thing."

"Well, I've been all over, really. I've traveled a lot around Europe and Asia. I studied for a while in Japan actually."

"Really? I've never traveled anywhere! Did you travel for fun, or what?"

"Mostly."

She frowned, feeling that his answers were less than satisfactory. "This might be a little personal, but how did you afford all the traveling? It must have been expensive flying to all those places."

"I guess." He shrugged. "I umm, inherited some money."

"I see." She realized he wasn't going to open up anymore about that. "So tell me about Japan. I've never been, but I have a, umm, friend from there." As she said it, Claire's mind instantly drifted to Hiro. In the midst of all the aftermath of the night at Kirby Plaza, she had been so concerned with the people around her and those at the hospital, that she hadn't even spared a minute on Hiro. She remembered that he was there. Someone told her that he had stabbed Sylar, but then Sylar had sent him flying and Hiro had disappeared, likely teleporting to another location.

Why hasn't he checked in? She wondered as Jaden started reminiscing about Japan. Even if he did get himself to safety, he would have checked in with us to make sure that we all survived okay. He would have wanted to know how it had ended, and if we had stopped Peter. Where is he? Her next thoughts concerned her even more. If he doesn't know that Sylar lived, he'll think that he's safe…but Sylar will probably want revenge on Hiro for stabbing him! She started panicking. I wonder if anyone else has talked to him.

"Claire?"

She realized that she had gotten lost in her thoughts and hadn't heard a word that Jaden had been saying. He seemed to have noticed.

"Is something wrong?" He asked her.

"No…not at all. I'm sorry, I just, umm, remembered something important that I have to do when I get home." She told him.

"You don't have to leave now, do you?"

"No, of course not." She smiled at him. "I wouldn't just walk out on a date!"

"Good thing."

The waiter arrived at that moment and delivered them the food they had ordered. When they were alone again, Jaden picked up the conversation.

"I don't think you've said yet, but where do you attend school?"

Claire hesitated. "I…umm...well…that's a good question."

"You don't know?"

"No, actually." She sighed, realizing that it was time for her to tell him more of the truth that she had been trying to hide for the past few dates. "The truth is, I don't live here in New York."

"You don't?"

"No. I'm from Texas."

"You have mentioned that, but I assumed that you meant you used to live in Texas and now you live here."

"Well, that's true sort of." She wondered how much she should tell him, and then decided that if she expected to have any sort of relationship with him she would have to be mostly honest, concerning her family situation at least. Claire had no intention of ever telling him about her ability. "You see, I'm adopted, and recently I started looking for my biological parents."

"Okay…" He listened to her story with patient interest as he cut into his steak.

"I finally found them. My mom was living in Texas too, but my dad lives here in New York." She explained. "So, I've been staying at his house for a while, sort of to get to know him. My parents, the ones who raised me, are in Texas still. I haven't really thought about what will happen will school starts up in the fall. I don't know if I'll still be here or not."

"I see. That sounds sort of complicated."

"I told you before that I had a complicated family situation." She reminded him.

"True, I just didn't really understand what you meant. Now I do though. I appreciate you telling me Claire. I'm sure it hasn't been an easy adjustment for you. Not many people like talking about personal things like that."

She smiled at him for his intuitive understanding. "It hasn't been easy. In fact it's been really hard at times, but I'm dealing."

"Well, I know I'm a little biased, but I hope you decided to stay here for a while."

"Me too."

PETER PETRELLI'S APARTMENT

"Spill."

Claire screamed as she opened the door and Peter jumped out at her. "God Peter!" She slapped his arm. "You scared me!"

"Sorry, but I want details."

"Were you just like waiting at the door for me to get home?" She frowned. "That's weird, and a little creepy."

He rolled his eyes. "I wasn't waiting for you, but I heard the elevator and I wanted to scare you."

"You're mean." She shut the door and removed her jacket. Peter took it from her and hung it on the rack by the door.

"Molly doesn't think so." He told her. "She thinks I'm cool." He grinned.

"You've brainwashed her then." Claire decided.

"Have not, but I do supposedly have that power."

"What?" Claire rounded on him with raised eyebrows.

"Yea, I've just figured it out. I'm not really sure how to use it yet though."

"Okay, explain." Claire crossed her arms and stared at him hard.

"Well, you know that Mohinder and I've been going over all the powers that I've come in contact with and there was this girl, Mohinder's friend, Eden, and she had the power of persuasion, so there's a very good chance that I can use that if I can figure it out."

"That's so not fair." Claire pouted. "You've got like the best power ever."

"Oh yea, it's real fun to blow up over New York and potentially have the power to kill millions of people." He retorted.

"Sorry." She recognized the flash of pain in his eyes as he thought about what almost happened. It was clearly something that would take a while for him to recover from, even though nobody was hurt that night. "So, where are Molly and Mohinder?"

"Molly is in my room. I borrowed one of Monty and Simon's storybooks to keep her amused." Peter explained.

"That was thoughtful of you."

"It has been known to happen on rare occasions." He headed toward the kitchen and Claire followed. "So, tell me about the date?"

"It was good." She answered simply.

"How good?"

"Peter, I'm not having this conversation with you." Claire insisted. "My personal life is absolutely none of your business."

"Yes it is. You are my niece, and since you don't really have a father here at the moment, I am the closest thing you've got."

"That's an interesting view of things." She grinned. "It's not going to work though. I wouldn't tell either of my fathers the details of my dates."

Peter started fishing through the cupboards for something to snack on. "Fine. You don't have to tell me all the details, but you did have a good time, didn't you? You're smiling. That has to be a good sign, right?"

Claire let her smile widen. "Yea, it's a good sign."

"Claire?" Molly joined them in the kitchen with wide eyes. "You're finally back!"

"I'm sorry sweetie, I hadn't meant to stay out so late." She greeted the little girl with a hug.

"Did you have fun with your boyfriend?"

"Oh, Molly, he isn't my boyfriend." Claire corrected her quickly.

"Peter said he was."

Claire glared at her uncle who looked determinedly in the other direction. "I'm sorry, but Peter lied to you. Jaden is just a friend."

"Okay." Molly spied of box of cookies in the cupboard and gazed up at them longingly.

"Would you like some, Molly?" Peter offered, following her gaze to the box. She nodded eagerly and he pulled it down to the counter and started piling a few cookies onto a small plate. "Claire, could you get her some milk?"

Claire obediently retrieved the milk from the fridge as he found a small glass for her. "You would make such a good dad." She commented without thinking much about it.

Peter gave her a strange look and then shook his head with a short laugh. "No, I'd be a terrible dad. I'd probably end up accidentally poisoning my kid or dropping him on his head or something."

"Peter, that's horrid!" Claire poured the milk for Molly and snatched one of the cookies from the box before Peter returned it to the cupboard. She followed him into the bedroom where he carried the plate of cookies and glass of milk for Molly who had decided to return to her coloring pages. "Seriously though, I think you'd be a good dad. You need to get married, or at least get a girlfriend. Why aren't you dating anyone?"

Peter hesitated for a moment and then answered without looking at her. "I don't know Claire. I guess I haven't found the right person yet."

"You can date without intending to marry, you know. It doesn't always have to be the right person." She sighed. "I've had plenty of wrong persons, trust me."

"And what about Jaden?"

"Peter, would you give it up already!" She followed him back out of the room once they had seen that Molly was comfortable.

"What? You can talk about my dating life, but I can't talk about yours."

"Yea, pretty much." She grinned as he scowled at her.

"Whatever, I'm over it." He dropped onto the couch and picked up the television remote and started flipping through the channels.

Claire flopped down on the couch beside him and started unfastening the straps on her stilettos. "So, what are we watching?"

"What? We're not watching anything. You're going to bed. It's past your bedtime."

"You're funny." She took the remote from him and set the TV on a re-run episode of Bewitched in black and white.

"Oh, come on." Peter pretended to be annoyed with her choice, but in under a minute she caught him laughing and enjoying the show as much as she was.

The front door opened soon after and Mohinder entered the room, greeting the two on the couch with a puzzled smiled. "Have you had a good evening?"

"Good enough." Peter answered.

"It was great." Claire piped in, smiling at Mohinder. "And I'm so glad you're here! I wanted to ask you about something!" She muted the TV and motioned for Mohinder to sit in the leather chair opposite the sofa.

"Yes?" He sat and waited for her to speak.

"Have you heard from Hiro?"

"What?"

"Hiro! You know…" Claire sat up straighter. "I saw him at Kirby Plaza! After he stabbed Sylar, he disappeared. Sylar sent him flying and he was just gone. I don't know what happened, but is he okay? Has anybody seen him or heard from him?"

"With all that has been going on this week, I hadn't even thought about him." Mohinder admitted. "I'm sure he's fine…"

Peter shook his head. "It doesn't make sense. Hiro should have checked in." He fished his new cell phone from his pocket and dialed a number. Claire leaned closer to hear the conversation.

"Hello? Hiro?"

"Hiro? No, Ando! It's Peter Petrelli from New York." Peter corrected the confused Japanese man on the other line.

"Oh, yes, Peter, how are you?"

"I'm fine…" Peter frowned. "I'm guessing by the way you answered the phone that Hiro isn't with you."

"No. I haven't seen or heard from Hiro since the night he left me in Japan so he could go and kill Sylar."

"Really? He hasn't called or anything?"

"No." Ando sounded worry.

"I'm sure he's fine, Ando." Peter tried to comfort him. "I'll keep in touch and let me know if you hear from him, okay?"

"I will."

"Bye." Peter hung up the phone and looked around at Mohinder and Claire. "Hiro's missing."