Disclaimer: I don't Heroes, and the fundamental concept of this story was inspired by rain and leaves' "Four Months Later" and is used with his permission
Feedback: I'd like it, trust me
A Leap to Safety
As Peter- and how long would it be before that name began to actually sound like his to him? So far he was only using it because he didn't have anything else he wanted to be called- woke up, he became aware of three different things about his surroundings once again.
Firstly, unlike the last time he'd awoken, he was now lying on a comfortable floor, in an equally comfortable room.
Secondly, the room he was in was brightly illuminated, adding to its comforting atmosphere.
Thirdly, the only person in his presence now an older woman, maybe in around her mid-forties, standing over him with a smile on her face and holding a breakfast tray.
"Hello, Peter," she said, smiling at him as he looked at her inquiringly. "I'm Claire's mother, Sandra Butler; my husband and I thought you'd like some breakfast."
"Uh… thanks," Peter said as he sat up, blinking uncertainly as he shrugged on a pale blue shirt that Claire must have grabbed for him- it was a bit big, but it at least felt better than talking to Claire's mother half-naked- before taking the tray; examining it, he saw a plateful of bacon, eggs and sausages, accompanied by a glass of orange juice.
"Wasn't sure what you'd like, so I got you a bit of a mixture," Sandra said by way of explanation, as Peter moved into a cross-legged position and began to eat the food.
"Hey; right now, I don't even know what I'd like," Peter replied, smiling slightly at her as he began to eat the bacon, nodding in approval as he looked back at her. "It's good; thanks."
"You're welcome," Sandra replied, smiling back at him. "You saved my daughter, Peter; I figure that breakfast is the least I can do."
Peter blinked.
"I saved her?" he said, looking up at the older woman in surprise. "Uh… how'd I do that?"
"There was…" Sandra paused for a moment, evidently wondering if she should say what she was about to say, before she nodded resolutely. "There was a man who was… he tried to kill Claire, before you stopped him."
"Really?" Peter asked, raising an eyebrow and smiling slightly as he reflected on that.
He had to admit, he kind of liked the implications of what that last statement said about him as a person; saving the girl from the psychocitic killer…
"How'd it happen?" he asked, looking inquiringly at his hostess as he started to cut his egg. "I mean, did I just… see him attacking her or something?"
For a moment Sandra simply looked silently at him, evidently contemplating what she should say, before she shook her head.
"It's… it's not really something I can tell you; I don't know enough about it to tell you much, anyway," she said apologetically, the expression on her face making it clear that she wasn't concealing the truth for any other reason than what she had just told him. "My husband… well, he thinks he knows who put you in this position; he said he'd see what he could do about finding a way to help you."
"'This position'?" Peter repeated, looking at her with a slightly sceptical smile. "Your husband knows people who can leave me in a box without any memories?"
The serious expression on Sandra's face prompted him to end that line of inquiry; evidently she didn't know how to respond to that comment right now, and Peter didn't feel right pressing her for any further information.
Besides…
Given where he'd been when he'd 'woken up' last time, something told him that he almost might not want to know more about what Claire's father did for a living that put him in contact with people like that. Maybe if he asked Claire…
If the situation hadn't been so serious, Peter would have chuckled at the thought; here he was, a man in his mid-twenties- according to what Claire had told him; she admitted that he'd never told her his specific age, but she'd given him a general estimate at least-, and he was going to trust the word of a girl who was still in high school?
At the same time, though, there was the way she'd looked at him when he'd arrived… a look that gave the impression that she'd thought that she'd never see him again (Although that thing she said about knowing that he couldn't be dead at least gave him a bit of an idea about why she was looking at him like that)… a look that seemed so much older than the face that it had been on should appear…
Something had happened to Claire that made her more than just a normal girl, and Peter was definitely interested to know what it was.
If nothing else, why had she been more startled about the fact that he was inher room than by the fact that he'd been able to just appear in it like he had? He might not remember his life, but he was pretty sure that, if their positions had been reversed, he'd have been asking her how she managed to do that; she might have seemed surprised to actually see him, but given what she'd said it sounded more like that was because she'd thought he was… dead, apparently… rather than because he'd just appeared there…
Why would that be her more immediate concern?
Even as Claire walked through the corridors of her new school, she could barely pay any attention to the events taking place around her. The cheerleader tryout signs- once a possible sign of her attempt to recapture a past that she'd had to abandon- were now nothing more than bits of paper on the wall, the people around her weren't her peers but just people she had to spend time with, and as for boys…
How could she think seriously about any of these boys when the man who'd literally died for her had returned to her life? OK, a couple of them seemed to be all right- that 'West' guy was actually kind of cute if you got past that whole 'aliens/robots' theory of school survival he had-, but the simple fact was that, now that Peter was back in her life, most of the boys around her seemed so…
She was almost ashamed to say 'childish', but there it was; after she's spent so much time with a guy who was willing to die for her, anyone else just… couldn't compare to him, really.
In many ways, she was actually rather grateful to be in the darkened science classroom right now; watching a cartoonish-looking lizard regrowing its missing limb might be a bit disturbing, but at least it gave her something to think about apart from the failing standard of guys in her age bracket who weren't related to her…
"This video," Mr Zern said, as he looked out at the class before him, "demonstrates the newt's amazing ability to re-grow a completely working limb. But newts are not the only creatures with this talent; thanks to millions of years of combined mutation, lizards are capable of cellular regeneration-"
"You mean like people who can heal themselves?" Claire cut in, her mind briefly started away from thoughts of Peter by that reference to her own ability; she couldn't believe that she hadn't made the connection earlier.
"No," Mr Zern chuckled, "not people, Claire; lizards. And raise your hand, please."
Even as a part of her was kicking herself for letting things go this far- what happened to 'be invisible'?-, Claire raised her hand, determined to learn more about what she might be capable of.
"But it's possible, right?" she asked Mr Zern earnestly, after he nodded in her direction and she'd lowered her hand once again. "For people to be able to do that too? I mean, theoretically."
"Well, there's a lot of controversial- though promising- work with stem cells," Mr Zern replied, nodding thoughtfully at the question.
"So we might be able to culture whole organs and limbs for people who need them?" Claire continued, looking earnestly at him as another thought occurred to her. "I mean, could we even replace damaged brain tissue?"
She'd be the first to admit that she wasn't entirely sure how the Haitian's memory-erasing power worked, but given those brain tumours that had nearly killed her mother, it wasn't like it was totally impossible to assume that he erased memories by damaging the parts of the brain that held those memories.
Maybe if she could figure out how to… how to prompt Peter's power to repair the damage to his memory, he'd remember who he was.
"Well… the organ thing's possible, but as to repairing brain tissue, we're a long way from being capable of doing something like that yet," Mr Zern replied, shaking his head slightly as he thought over her question before he shrugged. "Evolution-wise, I guess the next step for us is phasing out the extra parts. We're not using the appendix anymore, or grinding bone with our wisdom teeth; we don't even really need a pinky toe for balance, it's all just… junk in our DNA."
For a moment Claire thought about asking if he knew anything about the possibility of people having evolved a different gene code already- it might be interesting to get a more scientific perspective on the whole thing-, but she quickly decided against it; with Peter currently lacking any idea of what he could really do if he had to, she didn't want to put herself in the spotlight and draw attention to him.
After all, how do you explain your amnesic biological uncle suddenly showing up at your house when you're trying to start a new life to stay under the radar? She might want to help Peter, but she knew that letting that 'Company' that her dad used to work for get their hands on him in his current condition would be anything but helpful; given what he was capable of, they'd lock him up until they'd worked out how he could do the mimicry thing and then kill him.
She couldn't let that happen to Peter…
(And no, she told the traitorous part of her mind that always taunted her about falling for her uncle, it's not because of how I feel; I just don't want him to lose the guy who saved my life again…
It was a good argument.
Too bad she didn't really believe it.)
A few hours later, as school ended and the last bell of the day rang, Claire was just closing her locker and had turned to head towards the car park when West stepped out from around the corner, a slight smile on his face as he looked at her.
"So ... lizards, huh?" West said, smiling at her in that almost teasing way that was already getting on her nerves.
"Tell me you didn't just time that so I'd walk right past you," Claire sighed, looking almost incredulously at him before she shook her head slightly and walked past him, trying to ignore him as he followed her; the only thing remotely appealing about him right now was the Peter-like hair, and after seeing the real thing's new shorter cut even that was pushing it.
"I figured you'd be more into whales or something," he said, sounding almost amused at the idea that she'd have genetics-related questions. "Unicorns-"
"You know," she sighed as she started to walk away from her locker and towards the car park, hoping that he'd stop talking to her once he registered that she wasn't interested, "you make a lot of assumptions; is my hair really that blonde?"
She always hated it when people just assumed she couldn't take care of herself; it was one of the reasons she… liked (Such a pathetic term for it, really, but it was all she could think of right now; she had to start watching her thoughts in case Peter tapped into Officer Parkman's telepathy and found out something she didn't want him to know) Peter so much. He might have come all the way to Texas to save her, but at least he'd shown- admittedly when he gave her that gun to kill him if he lost control- that he trusted her enough to do what she had to do if the situation called for it.
"I think it's cool, actually," West commented, drawing her attention back to him (As much as she would have preferred to be able to continue thinking about Peter). "I'm… sort of into genetics too."
"I didn't say I was into genetics-" she began, shrugging dismissively.
"You don't have to hide everything interesting about you," West said, moving over to her right side as he continued talking, waving his arms slightly to emphasise his point. "Biology is supposed to be our destiny. But people forget; genes can change."
Claire frowned slightly as she continued walking, wishing that this guy would just get the picture and turn away; his enthusiasm for this topic might be somewhat endearing, but with Peter's return, his presence now a constant reminder of his old determination to save people…
Quite frankly, West just seemed like he was trying too hard to talk to her.
"I thought guys like you were supposed to sit at the back of the classroom and hate everything," she said, smirking slightly at him as she walked. For a moment, West seemed lost and she hoped that he was going to give up and walk away, but then he continued speaking.
"I just found this book," he said. "It's by some Indian guy- I can barely even pronounce his name- it's about everything you're talking about; people who've evolved. There's a whole chapter on regeneration-"
"Sorry," Claire said, determined to cut him off- he was starting to get dangerously close to a topic she really didn't want anyone else thinking about-, "I… uh… left all my awesome genetic textbook reading for the summer vacation."
Once again, however, West proved incapable of taking the hint; after a brief pause, he simply started speaking again.
"You should see it," he told her, although his tone at least sounded more uncertain than it had earlier. "I- I could bring it over. Get you on your way to your Ph.D."
"You know," Claire cut in rummaging in her bag for her keys, "I don't really care that much; I was just kind of bored in class."
"Really?" West said as she pulled out her keys, his tone evidently sceptical even if he wasn't going to push the point.
"Yes," she said, as she turned to look at him with an insincere smile, "but if you like lizards, that's awesome; have fun, and I've gotta go home."
It was only when she turned around and noted the absence of her car that she realised that getting home wouldn't be as simple as she thought it was going to be.
Great… she groaned to herself. I've got an inquisitive pain-in-the-neck who might know way too much about me already asking questions, my amnesic-yet-still-hot 'uncle'- she still couldn't make herself think of Peter that way- is back in my life, and now my car's been stolen?
It was official; trying to start a new life sucked.
AN: To anyone wondering after reading this chapter, yes, this will be anti-Claire/West in general and anti-West in particular; I just… I REALLY don't like the guy, and am convinced Claire just used him as a convenient 'Peter substitute' due to him looking a bit like Peter. I mean, he told Claire that she was 'better' than Debbie just because she had powers; call me paranoid, but wasn't it that kind of attitude that drove Sylar to kill all those people? I'm not saying that West would do THAT, I'm just saying that he's the kind of guy who thinks that he can do what he wants because he isn't normal; Debbie might have been a bitch, but she never did any real harm to anyone, and yet West convinced Claire to abuse her power to get back at her, when the only time CLAIRE used her powers independently was to save a life and punish a rapist.
AN 2: If anyone could direct me to a web site where I can find scripts for the remaining episodes of Season Two, I'd appreciate it; the site I was originally using has suddenly been apparently stopped for some reason, so if anyone could direct me to another site I could use to find some episode dialogue it would definitely be helpful
