I Can Fix You

Previously on Heroes

Claire shrugs, "Probably. But you just seem tired. Are you ok, Gabriel?"

Smiling a genuine smile, he says, "Sitting here now, I never could have been better." Gabriel is telling the truth. Gabriel notices that what ever worry he was stressing the night before left, and all that he has on his mind is the pretty girl in his lap wearing his over-sized sweatshirt.

"Gabriel," Claire says as he shuts off the engine, "why won't you tell me what's wrong?"

"I can't," Gabriel says through clenched teeth, hands gripping the steering wheel. "Things are finally starting to look up; even while Elle was around, things are finally going my way, and I will not burden you with my problems and chase you away."

"Gabriel," she begins, "when did your powers start manifesting?"

Gabriel looks at her sharply, brows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"You can do things. You're special," Claire says, placing her other hand on the exposed nail and runs her hand over it, creating a large gash across her palm. Gabriel immediately grabs her bloodied hand, and watches it heal right before his eyes. He looks at her, waiting for her answer.

"I know this because I'm special, too. There's something you need to know, and it's been breaking my heart having to keep this from you."

Chapter 8: Angels With Dirty Faces

Gabriel stares at the girl in front of him in disbelief, "What have you been keeping from me?"

Claire looks around them and leads Gabriel onto the beach, away from the crowds gathering on the board walk. She takes him to a stony wall that boarder along the waters. There is a large cavity inside the stone, a grotto.

Taking a seat on a mossy rock, Gabriel sits there expectantly, but he is unable to look at Claire.

She takes a deep breath, "I suddenly have no idea where to start."

"You can start by telling the truth," Gabriel says, his voice lacking the affectionate connotation he had always reserved especially for her. "How I seem to be 'special' and how you seem to know all about it."

"Gabriel," Claire says, her throat nearly constricting, "you were never in a car accident."

"Ok."

"You….you took the abilities you have from people," Claire says. "People are dead because of it."

"Are you saying I'm a killer, and I suddenly forgot?" Gabriel asks, looking at Claire, all sorts of emotion playing out in his eyes.

"You have the ability to detect when people are lying," Claire tells him, trying not to lose control of her own emotions. "Do you think I am lying?" A certain realization dawns in Gabriel's eyes, and he looks away, "I want to," he replies.

"I also know you have the ability to know the history of any object you touch," Claire holds out her hand. "Including people."

Gabriel looks at her out stretched hand, and at Claire. He takes her hand and concentrates.

He opens his eyes and he finds himself in a locker room with various homecoming decorations around him. Gabriel realizes that Claire is standing there with him in the vision-esque history lesson. "Where are we?"

"Odessa, Texas. This is pretty much where we first met." The locker room is dark, and he hears screaming. With Claire in hand, Gabriel investigates and sees a second Claire, and another girl pinned up against the lockers by…HIM!

"NO!" But the connection with Claire prevents him from making it stop, making them both relive that night as the other Claire jumps the man and he throws her off with paranormal strength. The other girl bleeds to death as Gabriel watches himself stare at the other Claire, broken bones healing in front of his eyes.

The scene changes and Gabriel is seeing the other Claire in her room at the Bennet home. She opens her door and he sees himself at the door. He comes in and Claire hits him with a trophy. He some how is able to cut the electricity and is stalking Claire in her own kitchen. He taunts her, she stabs him, he throws her against the wall and a cut slices her forehead. He probes her brain while she is still alive and conscious. Now they are in a building. Claire is with Angela, her father, and another blonde woman, and he hears his voice over the intercom. Claire stabs a tall man in the back of the head. Now they are in a suite, Gabriel is telekinetically controlling Claire's movements. She looks at him with disgust and hate, and he propositions her.

"STOOOOOOOP!" Gabriel all but shrieks as he rips his hand away from Claire's grasp. "Stop it! Just….stop!"

"Gabriel, please!"

But Gabriel does not listen to her please. He gets up to face her, "You knew! All this time, you all knew! My life….the last six months….a lie? Why?"

"You want to know why? Fine. We knew we couldn't kill you. You were too strong; we didn't know how long the tranquilizer would last, so Angela came up with a plan. She knew it was the Company's fault for you becoming the person you were, so she gave you a new life, a way to start over. She believed that if you had a life worth living for you wouldn't go back to being Sylar."

"You made me believe I actually had something," Gabriel says, "only to yank the rug from under my feet. All this, it's a lie. I remember everything."

"Then you must understand why we did it then," Claire says. "You had told us how empty your life had been, so we thought we could give you a new one. It was the only way to humanize you."

Gabriel laughs, humorlessly, "Humanize, that's a good one."

"Peter went to a future where he saw you as a good person and a good father. Angela had a vision where she still saw you as a hero," Claire looks at him. "I believe in you. Peter told me that you described your power as something like a hunger."

"Yes."

"Do you have it now?"

"Yes."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"Nothing," Gabriel says, a new realization coming to his eyes. "All my memories are back now, but it doesn't feel real. It's like it was all a bad dream….." Gabriel steps away from the grotto and retches into a near by bush. When he returns, Claire reaches for his hand and pulls him back next to her.

"Gabriel," Claire begins, "we didn't create this façade to be cruel, nor to be manipulative. It was the only way to show you that you don't need powers to be important. You were able to show people who you really are, before becoming Sylar. I like that person, and I would deeply miss that person if he were to disappear."

Gabriel remains silent. He walks towards the edge of the grotto, the ocean lapping at his feet as he stares into the ocean with a clear sky above it. "I understand now."

Claire gets up and walks toward Gabriel. She turns him around and she wraps her arms around his slim waist, her head nested perfectly under his chin. But Gabriel's arms remain limp at his side. "You were so scared," he says, voice numb. "How can you even touch me?"

"Because I have faith in you," Claire says. "That person doesn't exist anymore, and maybe I'm being selfish when I don't want to be alone for all eternity. We can't die."

"Only because I had violated you in the worst kind of way," Gabriel spats, tears are flowing down his cheeks. "People are dead because I am an impotent fool, regardless of all the powers I had collected."

"Gabriel, listen to yourself!" Claire demands. "You are not Sylar. You are Gabriel. Sylar is just bad dream we'll never think about again."

"What makes you think I am not Sylar now?" Gabriel wants to know.

"Well," she starts, cupping Gabriel's face in her hands and bringing it closer to hers, "if you were still Sylar, I wouldn't do this," and she kisses him. Claire's eyes are closed and she misses the shock in Gabriel's expression. But he is easily swayed, and he parts his lips to deepen the kiss. Every time their tongues touch, an electric shock shoots down his spine, and he is not sure if it is a metaphorical shock or his ability kicking in.

But it is Claire's euphoric moans that bring reality crashing down around Gabriel. "Claire," he says, regretfully pulling away, only too aware of the euphoria in his jeans. "I can't do this. You may be able to forgive and forget, but I can't. I was finally coming to accept the person I was, but then to find out it was not real. I know you guys had the best intentions, but I can't pretend what really happened never happened."

"Ok then," she says, stepping away from Gabriel and tucking her hands into her back pocket. "What do you want to do?"

"I think it is best if we stop hanging around each other for a while," he says. "I cannot rid myself of you looking at me, full of hate and disgust."

"Wait!" Claire cries, a hitch in her voice.

"We have all the time in the world," he tells her. "Just please allow me a moment to myself to figure things out."

Back at Claire's apartment complex, Gabriel tears out of the parking lot before Claire reaches the door. A fresh torrent of emotions threatens to make their presence know, and Claire goes into her home and leans against the closed door. When Tammy and Liz look up from their text books to see their friend sobbing uncontrollably, they immediately rush her to the couch.

"What happened?" they both want to know.

Claire knows that she can never tell her friends about her abilities and her connection to others with abilities and a forbidden relationship with a killer. So she tells them the only truth they can comprehend. "I kissed Gabriel at the carnival today. But he doesn't want me."

A/N: Im feeling severely disappointed with this chapter. I had a whole other scenario, but I just couldn't put it to words.