Aft Gang Agley - 2
Title: Aft Gang Agley - Part 2
Rating: PG (for now)
Pairings: Sylaire (I promise - no matter what it may look like in the beginning, I promise it’s Sylaire)
Word Count: 3164
Disclaimer: Not mine. So not mine. Title comes from Robert Burns, so I don’t own that either.
Author's Note: A giant thank you to freetheelves2 for her help as the beta reader for this chapter :)
Previous chapter: 1
He's been hoping for a quiet evening at home - just him, his family and his TV remote - but the ringing of his cell phone disrupts his plans. Caller ID lets him know that it's one of the Petrellis, but he can't think of why they'd be calling him instead of Claire, or why they would call his cell phone instead of the house.
"Excuse me, I need to take this." Lyle doesn't move at the sound of his voice, and Sandra and Claire are used to him running off with his phone, not even bothering to ask who is calling this time.
He flips open the phone as he walks down the hallway and into his study. "Hello?"
"Mr. Bennet. I'm so glad I caught you," a woman's imperial voice greets him. Of all the Petrellis, he hasn't expected to be speaking to Angela Petrelli. The woman just echoes of distrust, and he can feel the reverberations even over the phone.
"Mrs. Petrelli. What a surprise. How are you?"
"Cut the crap, Noah. I know you too well for that. Tell me, dear, how is it working out for you not being part of the Company anymore?"
He sinks into his office chair, and sighs. "You never did learn subtlety, did you, Angela? What do you want?"
"Noah, Noah, Noah. Why do you always assume that I want something?"
He can't mask the impatience in his voice as he grinds out, "that's because you always want something."
"Really, Noah, I just want a little update on our Claire." There's a note in her voice that he thinks is her attempt at acting innocent, and he feels himself tensing.
He grabs the stress ball on his desk and starts flexing his fingers around it. "You've never called for an update before. What do you want with Claire? Last time she was in New York she came back ranting about how you're a frigid ice queen. I doubt your relationship has improved since then."
"I was just wondering if it might be possible for me to steal her away for a few weeks, for a little… bonding… time."
He freezes when he hears the pause in her statement. He heard rumors when he was with the Company about Angela Petrelli, what she was capable of, and what she was responsible for, but he never believed the gossip. "What do you want with my daughter?"
"You're so suspicious; do you honestly think I would hurt my own flesh and blood?"
He realizes it's a rhetorical question, and doesn't respond with the resounding "yes!" that's on the tip of his tongue.
She continues on as if she hadn't asked him a question. "I just want to get to know my granddaughter better. It will only be for a month or two. Would it make you feel better if I brought Peter along as a chaperone? I'm sure they need some quality bonding time together also."
Warning bells are going off in his head, and he starts questioning the veracity of the rumors about her. "Mrs. Petrelli, I've got to ask you something, and I don't want to, but I can't let Claire go with you without asking. Are the stories about you running a breeding program true?"
"Noah, please, don't be so naïve."
"That was a 'yes' or 'no' question, Angela."
She sighs. "Oh, Noah, I hate playing these games with you. I've tried to be nice, I've tried to be helpful, I haven't said a word to the rest of the board about where you and your lovely family are hiding. I'd hate to accidentally slip up, and have them come looking for you. I'm sure Sandra and Lyle won't mind yet another visit from some of our friends, but I don't think I can say the same for you. Really, I'm feeling forgetful and careless already. I'd be willing to bet that I'd feel better after a little time with Claire." Her words are flippant, but her tone is a warning wrapped inside a velvet glove.
He closes his eyes and prays to a God he's not even sure he believes in anymore. "What sort of marriage have you arranged for her, then?"
"Oh. That… it's complicated. How do I say this? A marriage is completely out of the question. I know that arranged marriages are quite the thing to do, but not in this case."
He connects the pieces, and has to stop himself from gagging. "Absolutely not, Angela. No way, no how. I'm not giving you Claire as a plaything for Peter. I don't care what you do to me, it's not going to happen." He puts down the stress ball, walks over to the bar in the corner of the room, and pours himself a few fingers worth of whiskey.
She laughs. "Oh, Noah, don't be so silly and dramatic. There's no need for these games." Her voice turns cold and menacing. "I'm her grandmother, and my son - her real father - never signed over his paternal rights to you. If I want my granddaughter, I'm going to have my granddaughter - even if I have to step over your dead body to get her. I'd just hate to have to step over Sandra's and Lyle's bodies as well."
His blood runs cold at the threat against his family, and he knows he has very few options. "If I give her to you, could you find another man instead of Peter?"
"Be reasonable, Noah, and don't ask such stupid questions. She's not your daughter, and you have no say in her future. I make these decisions. I'll come get her tomorrow. Good…"
He cuts her off before she can finish. "Not tomorrow! I hate to say this, but… it's such a delicate subject… but you might want to wait a week." He prays that she understands what he's trying to say, and that she falls for his lie.
"Oh, I'd never thought about that problem. Yes, yes, a week's fine. I'll be talking to you later, Noah. Good night, dear, and say good night to my Claire for me, won't you?" She hangs up on him.
He sits back down, and throws back the whiskey like it was a shot of water. "What a bitch!" He doesn't mean to say it aloud, but he can't help himself.
- - - - - - - - - -
Claire has been hoping that her dad's phone call might be a fast one. He's been out of town on a business trip, yet again, and she really wants to just relax with her family at home tonight.
After ten minutes of brainlessly staring at the TV, waiting for him to come back, she just can't stand it any longer.
"Can I go get a soda or a snack or something, Mom?" she asks.
"It's 'may I', and of course you can, honey. How about you check on your dad, see if he wants anything? There are some fresh oatmeal raisin cookies in the kitchen; I bet he'd love to have one."
"Hey, Claire, bring me one too, will ya?" Lyle perks up at the mention of homemade cookies, even though both women had thought that he was sound asleep.
She promises to bring back the entire tray.
- - - - - - - - - -
She can't help the fact that she doesn't make much noise as she walks towards his office. She can't help that her mom told her to go to his office. She can't help that he's talking kind of loudly, and that he hasn't closed the door.
She can't help but overhear his conversation. When he addresses the person on the other end as "Mrs. Petrelli" and "Angela," she knows exactly who he's talking to, and she wonders why her bio-grandmother is calling him.
She can only hear his end of the conversation, and only every third or fourth word clearly, and she wishes that she could hear the rest. He sounds so tense, so angry, and when he pours himself a drink, she knows that it's not a fun sort of conversation. She hears him mention her, and Peter, and "plaything," and she's disturbed by the strange thoughts that run through her head. She thinks that maybe her grandmother's misinterpreted their closeness, but she knows that's not the case as her dad continues talking.
She covers her mouth with her hand as she realizes what they're planning on doing to her, and she knows that her dad's being coerced into it.
He hangs up, and she steps into the room. He doesn't notice her standing there, right behind him, until he finishes his drink and curses her grandmother. She knows she's reached the right conclusions, but she has to ask anyhow.
"Dad?" She can't find the words to ask what she really wants to know.
"Oh, God, Claire-bear. How much did you hear?" He flexes his fingers around his glass again like it's the stress ball.
"Please tell me that I've got it wrong, that it's some sort of misunderstanding." Surely she's drawn the wrong conclusions. It's got to be a mistake.
He just stares at her, and she silently begs him to reassure her. He doesn't say a word.
"Dad, please, just tell me. Is she planning what I think she's planning?" She can't stop the tears from gathering in her eyes as she pleads with him to lie to her. She can't believe that her grandmother would be so… evil.
The sight of her tears is what breaks Bennet out of his daze, breaks his anger out of its fragile shell. He doesn't notice as he crushes the glass tumbler in his hand, nor does he notice the pain of the cuts on his palm.
"Claire-bear." He opens his arms to her, and she falls into his hug. "Shhh, it's going to be ok, shhh. I'm not letting her take you. It'll be ok."
She's not sure if he's trying to reassure her or himself.
- - - - - - - - - -
He leads her back into the living room. "Lyle, go to your room, now! Do homework, or go to bed, or something. Your mother and I need to have a little talk with Claire."
Lyle jumps off the couch, and gives Claire a small smile on his way out, as if to say 'what did you do to piss Dad off this much?'
"Noah, what on earth?" She looks at her husband and her daughter before realizing that something's missing. "Claire, where are the cookies?"
"Damn the cookies. Forget them. We've got bigger problems." He throws his cell phone at Claire. "Call Peter - tell him it's an emergency - to get here immediately."
- - - - - - - - - -
Her fingers are shaking so bad that she can barely dial his number.
He answers on the first ring. "Hi?"
"Peter, I need you. Can you get here - now - please? It's an emergency, and we really need you and Dad said to call you and please?" She doesn't want to cry, she's trying her hardest not to cry, but she can't help it.
He's there, in their living room, before she can finish the sentence.
"What's wrong?" He seems frantic, and looks at them. None of them are bleeding, and everyone's in one piece, and he can't figure out what the problem is.
Claire looks at him, and swallows hard. She can't tell him, she just can't say those words to him.
Bennet takes the initiative. "How much do you know about your mother's job, Peter?"
Confusion is written all over his face. "My mother doesn't have a job. She was a society wife while Dad was alive, but she's never had a real job. What does this have to do with some sort of emergency?"
"That's not entirely true, Peter. Your mother works for the Company - in fact, she's part of the board of directors. The emergency is what she's trying to do." Bennet wishes he could spare the young man from this, but he's got to make Peter understand. "She runs the Company's breeding program, and she wants to use Claire this month."
Peter just stares at him for a minute, like he's waiting for the punch line to the joke. When Bennet doesn't say anything else, Peter wonders when his life got this surreal. "Oh God. No, no, this can't be. No, she wouldn't do that to her own granddaughter. Who told you this? They're lying." He's grasping at straws, but he doesn't want to believe his mother could do anything like this. She'd always been an ice queen, and detached from her sons, but she's not capable of doing something like that.
"She just called me and demanded that I turn Claire over to her tomorrow."
Peter's on his feet with his cell phone in his hand before anyone else can blink. "I'll just call her and see what sort of joke she's playing."
"No!" Claire yelps at him, and grabs the phone away from him. "Dad, tell him the rest."
"There's more? What next, she's planning on using Nathan or me for this program too?"
"Son, she already has. Well, she's already used Nathan. She's planning on using you at the same time as Claire." Bennet hopes that Peter can either read between the lines or read his mind, because he doesn't think he can tell the young man how his mother is planning on using him.
Peter looks at him sharply, and then looks at Claire. She's stopped crying, but she won't make eye contact with him.
Sandra's eyes widen as she makes the connection. "Oh, Noah, no. Not that."
Peter feels like he's the only one in the room that doesn't know the full story, and none of the rest of them will tell him. He concentrates on Bennet's thoughts, and a wave of nausea hits him when he finally realizes that his mother is planning on using him and Claire, together. He hadn't wanted to believe any of this was true, but he knows that the Bennets aren't the type to invent this sort of sick fabrication.
He closes his eyes for a minute, and focuses his thoughts. He opens them to look directly into Bennet's eyes. "What are we going to do?"
- - - - - - - - - -
The conversation is going around in circles. They've been talking for hours, trying to come up with some sort of plan, and they're stuck. None of the options are good, yet no one speaks up with another idea.
They immediately rule out option one, which was to just let Angela go ahead with her plans. It would be the path of least resistance, the easiest thing to do, but all four of them agree that it shouldn't and couldn't happen.
They all agree that they need to shut down the program, but they’ve only got a week of freedom before Angela comes for Claire, and it’s not enough time. They need some sort of immediate plan.
Peter is all in favor of turning invisible and just running away. If his mother can't find him, maybe she'll spare Claire. Bennet is against the plan because it doesn't ensure that Claire would be safe - Angela might always just go with a back-up man, and then breed Claire again once Peter had been captured.
Sandra suggests an alternate to Peter's plan. Peter and Claire should both run, just not together. They can stage a fight between Claire and Noah, and then make it look like she is just another teenage runaway.
"Peter, please, it's the best option." Sandra begs him. "You're a nurse, you have friends in Doctors Without Borders, you've got a track record of dropping everything and running off to save people - you can run without Angela getting suspicious. Go to Africa, go to Asia, just run!"
"But what about Claire?" He can't leave without knowing that she's going to be ok. He wants to take her with him, but Noah has already vetoed that idea.
Bennet speaks up. "I've got some credit cards with a fake name on them, just in case of emergency, and some petty cash. We'll dye her hair real quick, and you can transport her to some city. I've got a friend who can help us out. He'll make sure we forget about this conversation. We'll tell the cops that she ran away because we grounded her for some stupid reason. It'll work, it's got to work."
"Dad, what about…" Claire starts to speak, but she's immediately stopped by her mother.
"Claire, we've got it figured out. You don't need to say anything." Sandra gives her a warning glare, and Claire shuts up. "You know, how about we go ahead and take care of that hair right now. I've got some dye upstairs. How about you say good bye to your uncle, honey, and goodnight to Dad."
Claire wonders what her mom's up to, but she goes along with it. She hugs Peter, and then hugs Noah. She follows Sandra out of the room, and up the stairs.
She waits until they're in her room, with the door closed. "Mom?"
"Honey, men are very special creatures. They have a need to protect their women, and once they get an idea in their heads, well, it's hard to get it out. There are some things you just can't say to them, especially those two. I could tell you were about to say something that was going to cause a problem."
"It's just that there are a couple more options. We don't have to run away."
Sandra narrows her eyes and looks at her daughter. "Claire, honey, the next words out of your mouth had better not be 'I could just kill myself'. A psychotic grandmother is no excuse for suicide."
"I'd never thought of that, actually." Claire looks confused. "Do you really think that I'm that much of a drama queen? Peter's the emo self-sacrificing hero - maybe you should be talking to him, Mom. No, my idea was that we could just stand up to her? Or turn her into the police? It's got to be a crime, like being a pimp or something."
Sandra shakes her head. "No, honey. I've got another idea, but you cannot tell your dad I said this. There are just some things your dad should never know, and this is one of them."
"Ok, mom."
"Claire, I never thought I'd be saying this to you, but there's another option. I'll understand completely if you think I'm crazy, but just hear me out. There's a way to keep Peter from getting you pregnant."
"Mom, not the safe sex talk again. The Pill and any sort of surgery won't work because of my powers, and I doubt that Grandma will let us use a condom." Claire hopes that when the Haitian comes to block their plans from her parents' minds that he'll wipe this part from hers as well.
Sandra pulls Claire into her arms for a hug, and then whispers low in her ear. "Honey, the one sure way a man can't knock you up is if you're already pregnant."
Next chapter
Rating: PG (for now)
Pairings: Sylaire (I promise - no matter what it may look like in the beginning, I promise it’s Sylaire)
Word Count: 3164
Disclaimer: Not mine. So not mine. Title comes from Robert Burns, so I don’t own that either.
Author's Note: A giant thank you to freetheelves2 for her help as the beta reader for this chapter :)
Previous chapter: 1
He's been hoping for a quiet evening at home - just him, his family and his TV remote - but the ringing of his cell phone disrupts his plans. Caller ID lets him know that it's one of the Petrellis, but he can't think of why they'd be calling him instead of Claire, or why they would call his cell phone instead of the house.
"Excuse me, I need to take this." Lyle doesn't move at the sound of his voice, and Sandra and Claire are used to him running off with his phone, not even bothering to ask who is calling this time.
He flips open the phone as he walks down the hallway and into his study. "Hello?"
"Mr. Bennet. I'm so glad I caught you," a woman's imperial voice greets him. Of all the Petrellis, he hasn't expected to be speaking to Angela Petrelli. The woman just echoes of distrust, and he can feel the reverberations even over the phone.
"Mrs. Petrelli. What a surprise. How are you?"
"Cut the crap, Noah. I know you too well for that. Tell me, dear, how is it working out for you not being part of the Company anymore?"
He sinks into his office chair, and sighs. "You never did learn subtlety, did you, Angela? What do you want?"
"Noah, Noah, Noah. Why do you always assume that I want something?"
He can't mask the impatience in his voice as he grinds out, "that's because you always want something."
"Really, Noah, I just want a little update on our Claire." There's a note in her voice that he thinks is her attempt at acting innocent, and he feels himself tensing.
He grabs the stress ball on his desk and starts flexing his fingers around it. "You've never called for an update before. What do you want with Claire? Last time she was in New York she came back ranting about how you're a frigid ice queen. I doubt your relationship has improved since then."
"I was just wondering if it might be possible for me to steal her away for a few weeks, for a little… bonding… time."
He freezes when he hears the pause in her statement. He heard rumors when he was with the Company about Angela Petrelli, what she was capable of, and what she was responsible for, but he never believed the gossip. "What do you want with my daughter?"
"You're so suspicious; do you honestly think I would hurt my own flesh and blood?"
He realizes it's a rhetorical question, and doesn't respond with the resounding "yes!" that's on the tip of his tongue.
She continues on as if she hadn't asked him a question. "I just want to get to know my granddaughter better. It will only be for a month or two. Would it make you feel better if I brought Peter along as a chaperone? I'm sure they need some quality bonding time together also."
Warning bells are going off in his head, and he starts questioning the veracity of the rumors about her. "Mrs. Petrelli, I've got to ask you something, and I don't want to, but I can't let Claire go with you without asking. Are the stories about you running a breeding program true?"
"Noah, please, don't be so naïve."
"That was a 'yes' or 'no' question, Angela."
She sighs. "Oh, Noah, I hate playing these games with you. I've tried to be nice, I've tried to be helpful, I haven't said a word to the rest of the board about where you and your lovely family are hiding. I'd hate to accidentally slip up, and have them come looking for you. I'm sure Sandra and Lyle won't mind yet another visit from some of our friends, but I don't think I can say the same for you. Really, I'm feeling forgetful and careless already. I'd be willing to bet that I'd feel better after a little time with Claire." Her words are flippant, but her tone is a warning wrapped inside a velvet glove.
He closes his eyes and prays to a God he's not even sure he believes in anymore. "What sort of marriage have you arranged for her, then?"
"Oh. That… it's complicated. How do I say this? A marriage is completely out of the question. I know that arranged marriages are quite the thing to do, but not in this case."
He connects the pieces, and has to stop himself from gagging. "Absolutely not, Angela. No way, no how. I'm not giving you Claire as a plaything for Peter. I don't care what you do to me, it's not going to happen." He puts down the stress ball, walks over to the bar in the corner of the room, and pours himself a few fingers worth of whiskey.
She laughs. "Oh, Noah, don't be so silly and dramatic. There's no need for these games." Her voice turns cold and menacing. "I'm her grandmother, and my son - her real father - never signed over his paternal rights to you. If I want my granddaughter, I'm going to have my granddaughter - even if I have to step over your dead body to get her. I'd just hate to have to step over Sandra's and Lyle's bodies as well."
His blood runs cold at the threat against his family, and he knows he has very few options. "If I give her to you, could you find another man instead of Peter?"
"Be reasonable, Noah, and don't ask such stupid questions. She's not your daughter, and you have no say in her future. I make these decisions. I'll come get her tomorrow. Good…"
He cuts her off before she can finish. "Not tomorrow! I hate to say this, but… it's such a delicate subject… but you might want to wait a week." He prays that she understands what he's trying to say, and that she falls for his lie.
"Oh, I'd never thought about that problem. Yes, yes, a week's fine. I'll be talking to you later, Noah. Good night, dear, and say good night to my Claire for me, won't you?" She hangs up on him.
He sits back down, and throws back the whiskey like it was a shot of water. "What a bitch!" He doesn't mean to say it aloud, but he can't help himself.
- - - - - - - - - -
Claire has been hoping that her dad's phone call might be a fast one. He's been out of town on a business trip, yet again, and she really wants to just relax with her family at home tonight.
After ten minutes of brainlessly staring at the TV, waiting for him to come back, she just can't stand it any longer.
"Can I go get a soda or a snack or something, Mom?" she asks.
"It's 'may I', and of course you can, honey. How about you check on your dad, see if he wants anything? There are some fresh oatmeal raisin cookies in the kitchen; I bet he'd love to have one."
"Hey, Claire, bring me one too, will ya?" Lyle perks up at the mention of homemade cookies, even though both women had thought that he was sound asleep.
She promises to bring back the entire tray.
- - - - - - - - - -
She can't help the fact that she doesn't make much noise as she walks towards his office. She can't help that her mom told her to go to his office. She can't help that he's talking kind of loudly, and that he hasn't closed the door.
She can't help but overhear his conversation. When he addresses the person on the other end as "Mrs. Petrelli" and "Angela," she knows exactly who he's talking to, and she wonders why her bio-grandmother is calling him.
She can only hear his end of the conversation, and only every third or fourth word clearly, and she wishes that she could hear the rest. He sounds so tense, so angry, and when he pours himself a drink, she knows that it's not a fun sort of conversation. She hears him mention her, and Peter, and "plaything," and she's disturbed by the strange thoughts that run through her head. She thinks that maybe her grandmother's misinterpreted their closeness, but she knows that's not the case as her dad continues talking.
She covers her mouth with her hand as she realizes what they're planning on doing to her, and she knows that her dad's being coerced into it.
He hangs up, and she steps into the room. He doesn't notice her standing there, right behind him, until he finishes his drink and curses her grandmother. She knows she's reached the right conclusions, but she has to ask anyhow.
"Dad?" She can't find the words to ask what she really wants to know.
"Oh, God, Claire-bear. How much did you hear?" He flexes his fingers around his glass again like it's the stress ball.
"Please tell me that I've got it wrong, that it's some sort of misunderstanding." Surely she's drawn the wrong conclusions. It's got to be a mistake.
He just stares at her, and she silently begs him to reassure her. He doesn't say a word.
"Dad, please, just tell me. Is she planning what I think she's planning?" She can't stop the tears from gathering in her eyes as she pleads with him to lie to her. She can't believe that her grandmother would be so… evil.
The sight of her tears is what breaks Bennet out of his daze, breaks his anger out of its fragile shell. He doesn't notice as he crushes the glass tumbler in his hand, nor does he notice the pain of the cuts on his palm.
"Claire-bear." He opens his arms to her, and she falls into his hug. "Shhh, it's going to be ok, shhh. I'm not letting her take you. It'll be ok."
She's not sure if he's trying to reassure her or himself.
- - - - - - - - - -
He leads her back into the living room. "Lyle, go to your room, now! Do homework, or go to bed, or something. Your mother and I need to have a little talk with Claire."
Lyle jumps off the couch, and gives Claire a small smile on his way out, as if to say 'what did you do to piss Dad off this much?'
"Noah, what on earth?" She looks at her husband and her daughter before realizing that something's missing. "Claire, where are the cookies?"
"Damn the cookies. Forget them. We've got bigger problems." He throws his cell phone at Claire. "Call Peter - tell him it's an emergency - to get here immediately."
- - - - - - - - - -
Her fingers are shaking so bad that she can barely dial his number.
He answers on the first ring. "Hi?"
"Peter, I need you. Can you get here - now - please? It's an emergency, and we really need you and Dad said to call you and please?" She doesn't want to cry, she's trying her hardest not to cry, but she can't help it.
He's there, in their living room, before she can finish the sentence.
"What's wrong?" He seems frantic, and looks at them. None of them are bleeding, and everyone's in one piece, and he can't figure out what the problem is.
Claire looks at him, and swallows hard. She can't tell him, she just can't say those words to him.
Bennet takes the initiative. "How much do you know about your mother's job, Peter?"
Confusion is written all over his face. "My mother doesn't have a job. She was a society wife while Dad was alive, but she's never had a real job. What does this have to do with some sort of emergency?"
"That's not entirely true, Peter. Your mother works for the Company - in fact, she's part of the board of directors. The emergency is what she's trying to do." Bennet wishes he could spare the young man from this, but he's got to make Peter understand. "She runs the Company's breeding program, and she wants to use Claire this month."
Peter just stares at him for a minute, like he's waiting for the punch line to the joke. When Bennet doesn't say anything else, Peter wonders when his life got this surreal. "Oh God. No, no, this can't be. No, she wouldn't do that to her own granddaughter. Who told you this? They're lying." He's grasping at straws, but he doesn't want to believe his mother could do anything like this. She'd always been an ice queen, and detached from her sons, but she's not capable of doing something like that.
"She just called me and demanded that I turn Claire over to her tomorrow."
Peter's on his feet with his cell phone in his hand before anyone else can blink. "I'll just call her and see what sort of joke she's playing."
"No!" Claire yelps at him, and grabs the phone away from him. "Dad, tell him the rest."
"There's more? What next, she's planning on using Nathan or me for this program too?"
"Son, she already has. Well, she's already used Nathan. She's planning on using you at the same time as Claire." Bennet hopes that Peter can either read between the lines or read his mind, because he doesn't think he can tell the young man how his mother is planning on using him.
Peter looks at him sharply, and then looks at Claire. She's stopped crying, but she won't make eye contact with him.
Sandra's eyes widen as she makes the connection. "Oh, Noah, no. Not that."
Peter feels like he's the only one in the room that doesn't know the full story, and none of the rest of them will tell him. He concentrates on Bennet's thoughts, and a wave of nausea hits him when he finally realizes that his mother is planning on using him and Claire, together. He hadn't wanted to believe any of this was true, but he knows that the Bennets aren't the type to invent this sort of sick fabrication.
He closes his eyes for a minute, and focuses his thoughts. He opens them to look directly into Bennet's eyes. "What are we going to do?"
- - - - - - - - - -
The conversation is going around in circles. They've been talking for hours, trying to come up with some sort of plan, and they're stuck. None of the options are good, yet no one speaks up with another idea.
They immediately rule out option one, which was to just let Angela go ahead with her plans. It would be the path of least resistance, the easiest thing to do, but all four of them agree that it shouldn't and couldn't happen.
They all agree that they need to shut down the program, but they’ve only got a week of freedom before Angela comes for Claire, and it’s not enough time. They need some sort of immediate plan.
Peter is all in favor of turning invisible and just running away. If his mother can't find him, maybe she'll spare Claire. Bennet is against the plan because it doesn't ensure that Claire would be safe - Angela might always just go with a back-up man, and then breed Claire again once Peter had been captured.
Sandra suggests an alternate to Peter's plan. Peter and Claire should both run, just not together. They can stage a fight between Claire and Noah, and then make it look like she is just another teenage runaway.
"Peter, please, it's the best option." Sandra begs him. "You're a nurse, you have friends in Doctors Without Borders, you've got a track record of dropping everything and running off to save people - you can run without Angela getting suspicious. Go to Africa, go to Asia, just run!"
"But what about Claire?" He can't leave without knowing that she's going to be ok. He wants to take her with him, but Noah has already vetoed that idea.
Bennet speaks up. "I've got some credit cards with a fake name on them, just in case of emergency, and some petty cash. We'll dye her hair real quick, and you can transport her to some city. I've got a friend who can help us out. He'll make sure we forget about this conversation. We'll tell the cops that she ran away because we grounded her for some stupid reason. It'll work, it's got to work."
"Dad, what about…" Claire starts to speak, but she's immediately stopped by her mother.
"Claire, we've got it figured out. You don't need to say anything." Sandra gives her a warning glare, and Claire shuts up. "You know, how about we go ahead and take care of that hair right now. I've got some dye upstairs. How about you say good bye to your uncle, honey, and goodnight to Dad."
Claire wonders what her mom's up to, but she goes along with it. She hugs Peter, and then hugs Noah. She follows Sandra out of the room, and up the stairs.
She waits until they're in her room, with the door closed. "Mom?"
"Honey, men are very special creatures. They have a need to protect their women, and once they get an idea in their heads, well, it's hard to get it out. There are some things you just can't say to them, especially those two. I could tell you were about to say something that was going to cause a problem."
"It's just that there are a couple more options. We don't have to run away."
Sandra narrows her eyes and looks at her daughter. "Claire, honey, the next words out of your mouth had better not be 'I could just kill myself'. A psychotic grandmother is no excuse for suicide."
"I'd never thought of that, actually." Claire looks confused. "Do you really think that I'm that much of a drama queen? Peter's the emo self-sacrificing hero - maybe you should be talking to him, Mom. No, my idea was that we could just stand up to her? Or turn her into the police? It's got to be a crime, like being a pimp or something."
Sandra shakes her head. "No, honey. I've got another idea, but you cannot tell your dad I said this. There are just some things your dad should never know, and this is one of them."
"Ok, mom."
"Claire, I never thought I'd be saying this to you, but there's another option. I'll understand completely if you think I'm crazy, but just hear me out. There's a way to keep Peter from getting you pregnant."
"Mom, not the safe sex talk again. The Pill and any sort of surgery won't work because of my powers, and I doubt that Grandma will let us use a condom." Claire hopes that when the Haitian comes to block their plans from her parents' minds that he'll wipe this part from hers as well.
Sandra pulls Claire into her arms for a hug, and then whispers low in her ear. "Honey, the one sure way a man can't knock you up is if you're already pregnant."
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