Fic: We All Shine Like Stars (then we fade away) (2/?)
Fic Title: We All Shine Like Stars (then we fade away) (2/?)
Author: lit_chick08
Disclaimer: Not mine; blame Kring
Pairing: Peter/Claire; Claire/OMC; Claire/Sylar
Rating: PG-13 for language in this chapter
Word Count: 4808
Spoilers: everything thus far plus alleged spoilers for Season 4
Summary: They were all trying to be normal again; they all knew it wasn’t working
A/N: That death that happened in the finale that changed everything? Yeah, that didn’t happen for the purposes of this story; nor did Hiro’s storyline. Also, Claire’s college? Not real
Part One: When We Last Left Our Heroes...
Roosevelt University, Washington DC
In retrospect, it was all Isaac Mendez’s fault.
Having spent the last month happily ensconced in new couple-dom with Jamie - a magical land of carefree dates, shameless PDA, and many a night spent working their way through Jamie’s reserve of condoms - Claire had severely slacked off in the roommate-bonding department. Gretchen wasn’t good with people and especially wasn’t good at making friends; outside of Claire, her social circle consisted of 2 other girls from the art department and their socially-inept RA. Because of that, Claire’s recent MIA status had hit her particularly hard.
It was due to that guilt that Claire had agreed to accompany her to the Pop Culture Innovators of the 21st Century exhibit that the art department was hosting. Bidding Jamie adieu for a night, Claire had followed Gretchen across campus, the early November cold biting even with her heavy coat.
“This is going to be so cool,” Gretchen babbled, pulling open the glass door to the gallery. “I heard that they’re going to have all the latest hits.”
“Hits?” Claire echoed in confusion, tugging the zipper of her coat down.
“Um, yeah. Didn’t you read the flyer I left for you?”
She hadn’t. She’d snuck a quickie in with Jamie before class. “Remind me, please.”
Gretchen gave her a faux-long suffering sigh before gesturing to the massive canvasses on the walls. “It’s all artwork by the best and brightest artists in comics. They got all of the big names to contribute.” When Claire said nothing, the gangly girl faltered a moment. “I thought you liked comics.”
Honestly, Claire had no strong feelings one way or the other, but she could understand why Gretchen would think that. Gretchen, an avid comic book and sci-fi geek, frequently watched superhero movies on their shared TV, movies that Claire frequently critiqued when she was present for their repeat viewings. Even Jamie had commented on Claire’s sharp criticism of superheroes after a somewhat disastrous viewing of The Dark Knight, during which Claire and one of Jamie’s suitemates had gotten into a screaming match over the “awesomeness” of the Joker.
“This’ll be great!” Claire lied with a grin, shrugging off her coat and folding it over her arms.
As Gretchen geeked out to the extreme over paintings and sketches that Claire didn’t recognize, Claire resisted the urge to check her Blackberry for any messages from Jamie. Gretchen, in her own passive-aggressive way, had made more than one comment about Claire’s recent dependency on her boyfriend, and, when the same comments had started to be echoed by her fellow pledges, Claire was starting to wonder if there wasn’t some truth to it.
“Oooh! There’s Maggie! I’m gonna go say hi.”
Barely managing to stop herself from wrinkling her nose at the mention of Gretchen’s hygienically challenged friend, Claire said, “I think I’ll check out the back room.”
Sidestepping a waiter and an older man who was lecturing pretentiously about one of the charcoal drawings, Claire headed towards the back room, seeking the privacy to check her phone. When she stepped inside the smaller, more intimate room, her heart froze in her chest.
Her life story was on the walls.
Okay, it wasn’t just her life story but it was pretty goddamn close. There she was at Homecoming, there was Peter in that trench coat, there was Hiro brandishing a sword…It was Nathan and Noah, Angela and Arthur, Mohinder and Matt and Niki. In bright colors with cartoonish features were the people that had shaped her past; their avatars were endlessly reliving the worst moments of her life and her classmates were standing around gawking at her nightmares like they were nothing more than Bugs Bunny cartoons.
Her eyes were drawn to the plaque near the entrance, the one describing this display. She read the words at varying speeds, but she knew that she’d be able to recite them back to anyone if they asked.
It has been said that anyone can tell a superhero story, but Brooklyn-based artist Isaac Mendez revolutionized the modern comic by basing his stories around real people and events. With “characters” such as Senator Nathan Petrelli exhibiting superhuman abilities and “mysteries” like the murder of Odessa, Texas, teenager Jackie Wilcox, Mendez was able to turn Ninth Wonders into a comic that was both entertaining and topical. In 2006, Mendez was murdered in his Brooklyn loft; the assailant was never found.
“You know, he really was underappreciated in his time.”
Claire felt every muscle in her body stiffen at the sound of the deep, familiar voice at her back. She didn’t need to turn to see who it was, but, at the same time, she wasn’t as startled by his presence as much as she would have been weeks earlier.
“Perhaps he should’ve been better protected.”
“Perhaps,” he acknowledged. “How have you been, Claire?”
Finally she turned, a small smile managing to work its way across her face. He hadn’t changed much in the last nine months except to say that he looked respectable again, the way he had when she had first seen him. In his dress pants and button down, cleanly shaven and hair neatly coiffed, Mohinder Suresh looked less like the man who had once sold them out and more like the professor he had once been.
“Oh, you know, living under the radar, going to school. You? What brings you to Roosevelt?”
“An old colleague of mine from India is teaching genetics here; he wanted me to speak at one of his senior classes. He thought they might find my past work to be…interesting.”
“I think I take a class with your friend.”
“Insufferably boring man?”
“That’d be him.”
They were quiet for a beat before Mohinder gestured to the painting of Peter and Claire fleeing from a shadowy Sylar. “It seems like such a long time ago, doesn’t it?”
No, she wanted to say. I think about it all the time. When it’s quiet or dark or I’m in the locker room in the fitness center, I think about that night; and I think about the crunch of my skull when he threw me against the lockers and the way Jackie told me to run. I think about Peter appearing like an angel and the locker doors flying and stumbling up the steps of the bleachers. But mostly I think about after Peter and Sylar took the tumble and I thought he had died for me. I remember the blood and the fear and the absolute sense of rightness I felt when I realized that he was like me. I remember the way he seemed like the answer to every problem I’d ever have, and I wanted to be at his side. So, no, it doesn’t seem like a long time ago; it seems like yesterday.
“Another life.”
Before Mohinder could say anything else, Gretchen appeared at her side, excitedly declaring, “Oh my god, isn’t his stuff amazing?! I used to be so addicted to Ninth Wonders! That Sylar guy was so creepy.” Seeming to only notice the man standing beside her roommate, she blushed and said, “Hi, I’m Gretchen.”
“Mohinder Suresh.”
Noticing the way Gretchen was looking in confusion between the two of them, Claire elaborated, “Mohinder’s an old friend of my dad’s. But he was just leaving.”
“Yes, yes, I was,” he agreed, awkwardly shifting his weight. “Gretchen, it was nice to meet you. Claire, perhaps while I’m in town, we could have lunch or something.”
If Gretchen hadn’t been standing there, she would have asked why he would even extend the invitation; it wasn’t as if they had ever been friends before or even had a lasting conversation. But instead she nodded quickly and gave a silent sigh of relief as he walked away, her new life safe.
* * *
Peter’s Apartment, New York City
It seemed like lately the only way Peter returned to his apartment was completely exhausted. Usually it was work that left him that way; occasionally it was a night out with his old friends from college. But tonight was reserved for a special level of exhaustion: that brought on by his family.
He had agreed to a family dinner with his mother and Nathan because it would spare him the indignity of having his mother show up at his apartment, scold him like a child, and force him to go anyway. And so he had went, been lectured for his career choice, decision to stay in his “hovel” of an apartment, and his lack of love life. He had barely managed to keep his temper during Nathan’s tirade against all the things wrong with him, and the last thread of his temper was nearly destroyed when Angela began to discuss the latest developments in the Company.
Peter had been halfway out the door when Angela had stopped him, pressing a kiss to his cheeks and very deliberately saying, “I think you should call Claire.”
“What?”
“Call Claire,” she reiterated.
“Why? Did you see something? Is something wrong?”
Angela’s smile was just this side of condescending. “You are allowed to speak to her when the world is not in peril, Peter.”
He wasn’t sure if she meant it to be an indictment, but it certainly felt like one.
And now, as he climbed out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his hips, he heard movement in his living room. Moving quickly, prepared for the worst, he sprung forward and then stopped cold at the sight of the intruder.
It had been years since Peter had seen him, and, even if he wasn’t the future version of a friend, he never would’ve forgotten the man that changed his life. And, as he stood near Peter’s newly broken coffee table, still clad in black, a samurai sword still slung on his back, Peter found himself oddly invigorated at the sight of Future Hiro Nakamura.
“Hello, Peter.”
He nodded in greeting. “Hiro.”
“I’m sorry to come to you like this again, but it’s important.” Beginning to pace the length of the living room, Hiro sighed, “I thought we had done the right thing before, that we had corrected everything that needed to be fixed in order to assure our success.”
“Hiro, I don’t know - “
“We were wrong, Peter; Sylar was never the threat.”
Peter froze in surprise. “What do you mean, he wasn’t the threat?”
“He was a threat but not the one…We stopped him from rounding us up, from posing as Nathan but it’s so much bigger than that, bigger than any of us ever imagined.” Reaching into his jacket, Hiro removed a fat, large envelope bound in string. “We changed the future, Peter, but when we did…we made it worse.”
Peter accepted the bundle addressed to him, the sharp, black ink declaring it was for his eyes only. Breaking the string, he temporarily ignored the glossy photos and multiple folders of information to find an unlabeled DVD. Brushing past Hiro, he popped into the player and turned on the TV.
He didn’t recognize the man that came into view on the screen; tall, mocha skinned, and a head of loose curls, he was solidly built but with a face that showcased far more kindness than Hiro’s stone visage. “Sorry for the intrusion into your reality again, Pete, but…Desperate times, you know?
“We’ve met before but, since I’m about 14 in your time, I’ll make introductions quick: I’m Micah Sanders. I was there the night you blew up in Kirby Plaza and, when Danko was trying to wipe us out, I was Rebel. And ten years from now, you and I, we’re going to be fighting on the same side again.” On screen, Micah held up the envelope that Peter now held. “Everything you’ll need is inside this envelope, including profiles of people you’ll need to get into contact with and the people you need to stop. Because, honestly, Pete, if you can’t stop Samuel now…It’s gonna be one bleak, fucking future.”
“Who’s Samuel?” Peter queried of Hiro, who remained silent.
“Here’s the catch,” Micah continued. “You’re going to need everyone on board for this, and I do mean everyone. You’ll need Sylar, Peter; he’s going to be key to all of this. But even more important than getting Sylar on board, than stopping Samuel…The mission’s the same as it ever was, as it always is: Save the cheerleader, save the world.” Smiling sadly, Micah concluded, “Good luck, man.”
As the screen turned to blue, Peter turned to face Hiro, who was now staring out the window at the city below. “What happens in the future? What happens to Claire? Who’s Samuel?”
“Save the cheerleader, save the world,” was all Hiro said, sadness playing across his features before disappearing into thin air.
Peter was motionless for a moment before dumping the contents of the envelope out onto his couch. As he sifted through the papers that he would read later and the mugshot-esque photos attached to files, he came across the one loose photo that he knew had nothing to do with recruitment or villains.
It was a group shot that was eerily similar to one Peter had seen dozens of times before, a group shot that had been mutilated and painted with blood when Adam Monroe had been killing its subjects. But this group shot featured people that Peter knew intimately: Nathan, Mohinder, Matt, Micah, Noah, Tracey, a teenage girl that was identified on the back of the photo as Molly Walker, and himself. But most shocking was a bespectacled Sylar and a brunette Claire, who was cradling a small bundle wrapped in a blue blanket in her arms, a bundle that the back identified as “baby Noah.” According to the date, the photo was taken December 24, 2010, a mere 14 months from now.
As Peter stared at the picture, he knew he had only one option: he was going to have to destroy everyone’s normal lives after he had been the one to insist upon on going backwards.
* * *
Tracey Strauss’s Apartment, Alexandria, Virginia
“You never said how long you were planning on staying.”
Micah Sanders didn’t even bother to look up from the screen of his laptop, his fingers flying over the keyboard with lightning speed. “Until you kick me out, I guess.”
“Micah - “
“Why haven’t you told the Company that I’m here yet?” he asked, pulling up multiple pages at a time.
Tracey was quiet for a moment as she studied her nephew. While she had never met her sister and no one would ever accuse her of being an overly sentimental person, Tracey had felt a pull of familial duty when Micah had appeared on her doorstep two months before following the death of his great-aunt in New Orleans. Despite all of his power, he had seemed so pathetic standing on her doorstep with nothing but a duffel bag and a laptop, looking less like the mastermind of a revolt against Danko and more like the orphaned 13-year-old he was.
“I have nowhere else to go,” he had said, and Tracey, who knew the feeling, had offered up her couch.
She honestly didn’t know why she hadn’t told Noah and Angela that he was on her couch. It certainly would’ve earned her brownie points with people who didn’t trust her and perhaps even solidified her position in its power structure, but…for all of her politicizing of life, even she couldn’t use an adolescent as leverage.
“What are you doing?” she asked, sidestepping the question as she fastened her necklace.
“I’m researching and organizing suspicious attacks around the country that can be traced back to people with abilities, specifically Sylar.”
“Sylar’s dead,” she reminded him for the hundredth time since he had first professed that the psycho was alive.
“No, he’s not,” he replied in his infuriatingly calm voice. “But he’s also lying low. These deaths don’t have a defining MO and are spaced erratically across the country.”
“Then you should let the Company handle this. Don’t you do anything normal?”
“I’m also on AIM and Facebook,” he offered, closing out a window as his chat box popped up again. “You’re going to miss the train if you don’t hurry.”
With a sigh, Tracey ordered, “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”
Smiling, he called after her, “Love you, too, Aunt Tracey!”
Once his aunt was gone, Micah turned his attention back to the chat box he currently had up.
TheWalkerSystem: I hate his wife!!! She looks at me like I’m gonna kill her in her sleep. I miss NYC
RebelHawkins: Yeah, know what you mean. Tracey looks like my mom but definitely not her.
TheWalkerSystem: She believe you about Sylar yet?
RebelHawkins: You’re the only one who does
TheWalkerSystem: Tried to tell Matt but did not work out well. Now have to go to therapy for PTSD
RebelHawkins: I emailed Suresh but no answer yet. You try?
TheWalkerSystem: Called him last night. He’s in DC at Roosevelt U. Said he’ll be there for a few weeks
RebelHawkins: RU?
TheWalkerSystem: Shit. Janice coming..gtg. ttyl
Closing the chat box, Micah brought up Claire’s Facebook page. Like almost every other college girl, her profile pic was self-taken, Claire obviously holding the camera away and at an angle in order to capture her and the man she was kissing. According to the boxes, she was “in a relationship with Jamie Sullivan,” belonged to a group called “Texas Girls Make Better Lovers,” and had a slew of friends who left somewhat cryptic messages on her wall that all seemed to be some kind of inside joke or double entendre about her boyfriend. While Micah managed to keep himself from rolling his eyes at the cliché Claire had become, he was able to easily find her dorm address.
If he left now, he could be at the Roosevelt campus in an hour; he just hoped this wasn’t one of those stupid things Tracey had warned him not to do in her absence.
* * *
Ambrose Quadrangle, Roosevelt University, Washington DC
It was all Jamie’s fault, Claire decided, as she rushed across the quad in an attempt to make it to her 10am Comp class. He had insisted that she stay the night at his place due to a string of muggings that had taken place on campus over the past couple of weeks; that invitation had lead to a movie marathon, which had lead to a truly impressive amount of sex, which had lead to both of them sleeping through his alarm. It wasn’t until one of his roommates began to bang on the wall for them to turn it off that they had woken up, Jamie having already missed his Chem Lab and Claire, due in class in 15 minutes.
“Skip it,” Jamie had pled, attempting to keep her in the warm bed. “We’ll spend the day together.”
But she had already missed more than her allotted days and couldn’t afford for her grade to be docked, which was why she was now sprinting with all of her might, drowning in one of Jamie’s Army sweatshirts, her messenger bag banging against her thighs, trying to look at her watch to see just how late she was going to be.
It was as she tried to find out the time that she crashed hard into someone, sending herself spilling backwards onto her ass hard enough that, if she felt pain, she would’ve been crying from a broken tailbone.
“I’m so sorry,” she began, looking at the person she had nearly plowed over, and then she froze.
Sylar stared down at her, his dark hair neater and better kept than the last time she had seen him, a pair of thick, black glasses perched atop his nose; in his jeans and plaid button down, he looked so amazingly average that no one would have ever expected he had once terrorized her for sport.
She waited for her instinctive response to the sight of him: fear, panic, desperation; but it never came. Instead, as she stared up at the man who had killed her mother and friends, who had tried to kill everyone she knew, who had sawed open her skull, Claire realized that there was nothing left for Sylar to do to her.
“Hello, Claire.”
Ignoring the hand he extended to help her up, Claire pushed herself to her feet, her class forgotten. “What, no witty quip? No intimidating stance? You’re losing your touch.”
“I’m not here to hurt you.”
“I don’t care why you’re here. Just stay the fuck away from me.”
“See, I can’t do that. You’re the only one who can help me.”
Grabbing her bag from the ground, Claire growled, “The only thing I want to help you with is helping you find a way to commit suicide. We have absolutely nothing to talk about ever again, so if you want a head start before I call my dad, I’d go now.”
As Claire attempted to brush by him, Sylar grabbed her upper arm. “I suggest you stay.”
“Or what? What’ll you do, Gabriel, fix my watch?”
Claire saw the fury dance in his eyes, but, for reasons she didn’t understand, he didn’t lash out the way he once had. “Look, for the sake of time, we’ll both admit that I’m a fucking bastard and you hate everything about me. But I need your help.”
“I don’t care! There is nothing you could possibly say that would make me help you.”
“I’m not your Sylar. This isn’t my reality.”
“What does that even mean?!”
“Peter’s told you about alternate futures, right? When Sylar stole your power at Homecoming, it lead to everyone with powers being persecuted; when the virus was released, 97% of the population died; when everyone’s powers were revealed, you ended up working for Pinehearst. I’m from one of those alternates.”
“And assuming I believe you, which I don’t, what’s the story? How did you get here?”
“There’s a man named Samuel Sullivan; he’s been gathering people like us for years now in an attempt to overthrow the Company, to find the perfect people for an army that can create a superior race. He can pull people from time, Claire; that’s how he got me. Your Sylar died when Peter killed him in the limo, and Samuel stole me from my time, my reality.”
“I don’t believe you,” she reiterated.
Sylar reached into his pocket, removing his wallet. Flipping it open, he showed her a photo of a smiling, little boy with sandy blond hair and big brown eyes. “This is my son. He’s four and now I’m never going to see him again.” His dark eyes filling with tears, Sylar declared, “I’m stuck here and I need you to help me get back.”
“Why would you come to me? Why not go to Hiro?”
“Because…because you’re my best friend.”
Claire stared at him, dumbfounded, before asking, “Did you escape them?”
He nodded. “They’ve got Eric Doyle, Elle Bishop, Knox, Adam Monroe, and Maury Parkman already. I don’t know who else he’s going to try to pull out of time, but it’s going to get dangerous quickly.” Grasping her hands, he begged, “Please, Claire. I need you.”
She didn’t trust him. She wasn’t even sure she believed him. But it didn’t stop her from saying, “Come on. You’re wanted in, like, 29 states. We need to get inside.”
As she hurried him across campus, desperate to get to her room, she began to calculate who she should call first. If his story was true, her father was the wrong choice; he’d kill Sylar immediately. Peter wouldn’t accept her calls, she had no desire to call Nathan, and Angela…The only person she could think to call was someone she had no idea how to get in touch with.
Stepping off the elevator, Sylar at her back, Claire stilled at the sight of Micah Sanders leaning against her door. When he caught sight of the man behind her, he quickly climbed to his feet, prepared to run until he saw Claire’s fairly relaxed posture.
“What the hell?” was all he offered.
Claire shrugged, unlocking her door and pushing both guys through it. “What are you doing here, Micah?”
“Warning you about him and trying to get to Suresh. Why are you with him?”
“He claims there’s some super villain gathering other villains from different timelines.”
Micah looked at Sylar with interest. “Does his operation move?”
The older man nodded. “They front as a carnival.”
This time, everything clicked into place for Claire. Samuel Sullivan, carnival, Jamie’s reluctance to discuss his family…It was so much worse than she had thought.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” she sighed, sinking down onto her bed. Taking a minute to gather her thoughts, a minute to bid goodbye to the life she had made for herself free of this sort of insanity, she looked from Micah to the blander version of Sylar. Finally, she said, “We can’t ask the Company for help. They won’t believe your story, they definitely won’t let Micah and I help with anything, and, if you’re not Sylar, if you’re just Gabriel Gray…they’ll kill you. This carnival, my boyfriend…I think it’s his family. That’s our in. But we’re going to have to beat them at their own game.”
“How?” Gabriel asked.
“We’ll need a team,” she declared, her plan quickly forming. She had spent the last three years studying at the feet of Noah Bennet, of Angela Petrelli; she knew what it took to run an operation, to be an agent. Despite the lack of faith that her entire family seemed to have in her, she was born and bred for this; between Gordon and Petrelli blood with Bennet upbringing, there was no one more qualified to save the world.
“A team?” Micah echoed.
“People we can trust, people that will work outside the box and won’t be swayed by this guy’s power. Suresh and Matt, maybe; I know some guys, West and Alex, they might be able to help. And Hiro! We definitely need Hiro and maybe even that friend of his.”
“What about Peter?” Gabriel suggested.
“No! No, he won’t do anything without involving Nathan and Angela and my father; no one can know about this. We’re…we’re doing this by ourselves.”
“So you believe me?”
“I believe that, if this guy Samuel has Elle and Doyle and all those other psychos, we’re all in danger. Micah, can you get Hiro here?”
“I could get the Queen here,” he stated with arrogance, “but do you really think we can do this alone?”
Thinking of her family, of the way they had effectively put her out to pasture, put her in this kind of situation, Claire felt anger burn deeply inside of her. “I think it’s the only chance we have.”
* * *
Burnt Toast Diner, Texas
Hiro was in the middle of his daily breakfast ritual when his phone began to vibrate with a text message. Expecting Ando, he was pleasantly surprised to find a message waiting from Rebel.
It’s time to save the world again: dangerous, can tell no one, will need to work with people that you might hate. If you can do this, meet us at the Reflecting Pool in DC tonight at 9pm.
And so Hiro appeared at the meeting place in question, stunned to find Claire Bennet, Micah Sanders, Sylar, and Mohinder Suresh waiting for him, all of them holding a small bag in their hands.
“What - “
“We’re going to save the world,” Claire interrupted, steel in her voice, “and we’re doing it with only the people here. It’s going to sound crazy and any normal life that you had - that we had - we’ll have to give up. If you don’t want to do this, this is your last chance to say no.”
Hiro looked at the mishmash of people before nodding. “It is my destiny to save the world, but…He is a villain.”
Claire glanced at Gabriel, who had already been subjected to the same speech from Mohinder hours earlier. “Yeah, maybe…it’s complicated, but there are worse villains right now, Hiro, and the Company…They don’t care about us. They always fail at this.”
“But I thought…” Choosing his words carefully, Hiro ventured, “I thought you wanted to be normal again.”
“Well, it seems like it’s my destiny not to be. So we all agree then? We’ll go to Samuel’s carnival, we’ll join the ranks, we’ll do what it takes?”
Everyone murmured their assent, though Mohinder took a moment longer than the others. As they began to walk towards the van that Mohinder had rented, Claire’s Blackberry began to vibrate in her pocket. Pulling it out, she glanced at the display screen to see who was calling her.
As Peter Petrelli flashed in block letters, Claire hit “ignore.”
Author: lit_chick08
Disclaimer: Not mine; blame Kring
Pairing: Peter/Claire; Claire/OMC; Claire/Sylar
Rating: PG-13 for language in this chapter
Word Count: 4808
Spoilers: everything thus far plus alleged spoilers for Season 4
Summary: They were all trying to be normal again; they all knew it wasn’t working
A/N: That death that happened in the finale that changed everything? Yeah, that didn’t happen for the purposes of this story; nor did Hiro’s storyline. Also, Claire’s college? Not real
Part One: When We Last Left Our Heroes...
Roosevelt University, Washington DC
In retrospect, it was all Isaac Mendez’s fault.
Having spent the last month happily ensconced in new couple-dom with Jamie - a magical land of carefree dates, shameless PDA, and many a night spent working their way through Jamie’s reserve of condoms - Claire had severely slacked off in the roommate-bonding department. Gretchen wasn’t good with people and especially wasn’t good at making friends; outside of Claire, her social circle consisted of 2 other girls from the art department and their socially-inept RA. Because of that, Claire’s recent MIA status had hit her particularly hard.
It was due to that guilt that Claire had agreed to accompany her to the Pop Culture Innovators of the 21st Century exhibit that the art department was hosting. Bidding Jamie adieu for a night, Claire had followed Gretchen across campus, the early November cold biting even with her heavy coat.
“This is going to be so cool,” Gretchen babbled, pulling open the glass door to the gallery. “I heard that they’re going to have all the latest hits.”
“Hits?” Claire echoed in confusion, tugging the zipper of her coat down.
“Um, yeah. Didn’t you read the flyer I left for you?”
She hadn’t. She’d snuck a quickie in with Jamie before class. “Remind me, please.”
Gretchen gave her a faux-long suffering sigh before gesturing to the massive canvasses on the walls. “It’s all artwork by the best and brightest artists in comics. They got all of the big names to contribute.” When Claire said nothing, the gangly girl faltered a moment. “I thought you liked comics.”
Honestly, Claire had no strong feelings one way or the other, but she could understand why Gretchen would think that. Gretchen, an avid comic book and sci-fi geek, frequently watched superhero movies on their shared TV, movies that Claire frequently critiqued when she was present for their repeat viewings. Even Jamie had commented on Claire’s sharp criticism of superheroes after a somewhat disastrous viewing of The Dark Knight, during which Claire and one of Jamie’s suitemates had gotten into a screaming match over the “awesomeness” of the Joker.
“This’ll be great!” Claire lied with a grin, shrugging off her coat and folding it over her arms.
As Gretchen geeked out to the extreme over paintings and sketches that Claire didn’t recognize, Claire resisted the urge to check her Blackberry for any messages from Jamie. Gretchen, in her own passive-aggressive way, had made more than one comment about Claire’s recent dependency on her boyfriend, and, when the same comments had started to be echoed by her fellow pledges, Claire was starting to wonder if there wasn’t some truth to it.
“Oooh! There’s Maggie! I’m gonna go say hi.”
Barely managing to stop herself from wrinkling her nose at the mention of Gretchen’s hygienically challenged friend, Claire said, “I think I’ll check out the back room.”
Sidestepping a waiter and an older man who was lecturing pretentiously about one of the charcoal drawings, Claire headed towards the back room, seeking the privacy to check her phone. When she stepped inside the smaller, more intimate room, her heart froze in her chest.
Her life story was on the walls.
Okay, it wasn’t just her life story but it was pretty goddamn close. There she was at Homecoming, there was Peter in that trench coat, there was Hiro brandishing a sword…It was Nathan and Noah, Angela and Arthur, Mohinder and Matt and Niki. In bright colors with cartoonish features were the people that had shaped her past; their avatars were endlessly reliving the worst moments of her life and her classmates were standing around gawking at her nightmares like they were nothing more than Bugs Bunny cartoons.
Her eyes were drawn to the plaque near the entrance, the one describing this display. She read the words at varying speeds, but she knew that she’d be able to recite them back to anyone if they asked.
It has been said that anyone can tell a superhero story, but Brooklyn-based artist Isaac Mendez revolutionized the modern comic by basing his stories around real people and events. With “characters” such as Senator Nathan Petrelli exhibiting superhuman abilities and “mysteries” like the murder of Odessa, Texas, teenager Jackie Wilcox, Mendez was able to turn Ninth Wonders into a comic that was both entertaining and topical. In 2006, Mendez was murdered in his Brooklyn loft; the assailant was never found.
“You know, he really was underappreciated in his time.”
Claire felt every muscle in her body stiffen at the sound of the deep, familiar voice at her back. She didn’t need to turn to see who it was, but, at the same time, she wasn’t as startled by his presence as much as she would have been weeks earlier.
“Perhaps he should’ve been better protected.”
“Perhaps,” he acknowledged. “How have you been, Claire?”
Finally she turned, a small smile managing to work its way across her face. He hadn’t changed much in the last nine months except to say that he looked respectable again, the way he had when she had first seen him. In his dress pants and button down, cleanly shaven and hair neatly coiffed, Mohinder Suresh looked less like the man who had once sold them out and more like the professor he had once been.
“Oh, you know, living under the radar, going to school. You? What brings you to Roosevelt?”
“An old colleague of mine from India is teaching genetics here; he wanted me to speak at one of his senior classes. He thought they might find my past work to be…interesting.”
“I think I take a class with your friend.”
“Insufferably boring man?”
“That’d be him.”
They were quiet for a beat before Mohinder gestured to the painting of Peter and Claire fleeing from a shadowy Sylar. “It seems like such a long time ago, doesn’t it?”
No, she wanted to say. I think about it all the time. When it’s quiet or dark or I’m in the locker room in the fitness center, I think about that night; and I think about the crunch of my skull when he threw me against the lockers and the way Jackie told me to run. I think about Peter appearing like an angel and the locker doors flying and stumbling up the steps of the bleachers. But mostly I think about after Peter and Sylar took the tumble and I thought he had died for me. I remember the blood and the fear and the absolute sense of rightness I felt when I realized that he was like me. I remember the way he seemed like the answer to every problem I’d ever have, and I wanted to be at his side. So, no, it doesn’t seem like a long time ago; it seems like yesterday.
“Another life.”
Before Mohinder could say anything else, Gretchen appeared at her side, excitedly declaring, “Oh my god, isn’t his stuff amazing?! I used to be so addicted to Ninth Wonders! That Sylar guy was so creepy.” Seeming to only notice the man standing beside her roommate, she blushed and said, “Hi, I’m Gretchen.”
“Mohinder Suresh.”
Noticing the way Gretchen was looking in confusion between the two of them, Claire elaborated, “Mohinder’s an old friend of my dad’s. But he was just leaving.”
“Yes, yes, I was,” he agreed, awkwardly shifting his weight. “Gretchen, it was nice to meet you. Claire, perhaps while I’m in town, we could have lunch or something.”
If Gretchen hadn’t been standing there, she would have asked why he would even extend the invitation; it wasn’t as if they had ever been friends before or even had a lasting conversation. But instead she nodded quickly and gave a silent sigh of relief as he walked away, her new life safe.
* * *
Peter’s Apartment, New York City
It seemed like lately the only way Peter returned to his apartment was completely exhausted. Usually it was work that left him that way; occasionally it was a night out with his old friends from college. But tonight was reserved for a special level of exhaustion: that brought on by his family.
He had agreed to a family dinner with his mother and Nathan because it would spare him the indignity of having his mother show up at his apartment, scold him like a child, and force him to go anyway. And so he had went, been lectured for his career choice, decision to stay in his “hovel” of an apartment, and his lack of love life. He had barely managed to keep his temper during Nathan’s tirade against all the things wrong with him, and the last thread of his temper was nearly destroyed when Angela began to discuss the latest developments in the Company.
Peter had been halfway out the door when Angela had stopped him, pressing a kiss to his cheeks and very deliberately saying, “I think you should call Claire.”
“What?”
“Call Claire,” she reiterated.
“Why? Did you see something? Is something wrong?”
Angela’s smile was just this side of condescending. “You are allowed to speak to her when the world is not in peril, Peter.”
He wasn’t sure if she meant it to be an indictment, but it certainly felt like one.
And now, as he climbed out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his hips, he heard movement in his living room. Moving quickly, prepared for the worst, he sprung forward and then stopped cold at the sight of the intruder.
It had been years since Peter had seen him, and, even if he wasn’t the future version of a friend, he never would’ve forgotten the man that changed his life. And, as he stood near Peter’s newly broken coffee table, still clad in black, a samurai sword still slung on his back, Peter found himself oddly invigorated at the sight of Future Hiro Nakamura.
“Hello, Peter.”
He nodded in greeting. “Hiro.”
“I’m sorry to come to you like this again, but it’s important.” Beginning to pace the length of the living room, Hiro sighed, “I thought we had done the right thing before, that we had corrected everything that needed to be fixed in order to assure our success.”
“Hiro, I don’t know - “
“We were wrong, Peter; Sylar was never the threat.”
Peter froze in surprise. “What do you mean, he wasn’t the threat?”
“He was a threat but not the one…We stopped him from rounding us up, from posing as Nathan but it’s so much bigger than that, bigger than any of us ever imagined.” Reaching into his jacket, Hiro removed a fat, large envelope bound in string. “We changed the future, Peter, but when we did…we made it worse.”
Peter accepted the bundle addressed to him, the sharp, black ink declaring it was for his eyes only. Breaking the string, he temporarily ignored the glossy photos and multiple folders of information to find an unlabeled DVD. Brushing past Hiro, he popped into the player and turned on the TV.
He didn’t recognize the man that came into view on the screen; tall, mocha skinned, and a head of loose curls, he was solidly built but with a face that showcased far more kindness than Hiro’s stone visage. “Sorry for the intrusion into your reality again, Pete, but…Desperate times, you know?
“We’ve met before but, since I’m about 14 in your time, I’ll make introductions quick: I’m Micah Sanders. I was there the night you blew up in Kirby Plaza and, when Danko was trying to wipe us out, I was Rebel. And ten years from now, you and I, we’re going to be fighting on the same side again.” On screen, Micah held up the envelope that Peter now held. “Everything you’ll need is inside this envelope, including profiles of people you’ll need to get into contact with and the people you need to stop. Because, honestly, Pete, if you can’t stop Samuel now…It’s gonna be one bleak, fucking future.”
“Who’s Samuel?” Peter queried of Hiro, who remained silent.
“Here’s the catch,” Micah continued. “You’re going to need everyone on board for this, and I do mean everyone. You’ll need Sylar, Peter; he’s going to be key to all of this. But even more important than getting Sylar on board, than stopping Samuel…The mission’s the same as it ever was, as it always is: Save the cheerleader, save the world.” Smiling sadly, Micah concluded, “Good luck, man.”
As the screen turned to blue, Peter turned to face Hiro, who was now staring out the window at the city below. “What happens in the future? What happens to Claire? Who’s Samuel?”
“Save the cheerleader, save the world,” was all Hiro said, sadness playing across his features before disappearing into thin air.
Peter was motionless for a moment before dumping the contents of the envelope out onto his couch. As he sifted through the papers that he would read later and the mugshot-esque photos attached to files, he came across the one loose photo that he knew had nothing to do with recruitment or villains.
It was a group shot that was eerily similar to one Peter had seen dozens of times before, a group shot that had been mutilated and painted with blood when Adam Monroe had been killing its subjects. But this group shot featured people that Peter knew intimately: Nathan, Mohinder, Matt, Micah, Noah, Tracey, a teenage girl that was identified on the back of the photo as Molly Walker, and himself. But most shocking was a bespectacled Sylar and a brunette Claire, who was cradling a small bundle wrapped in a blue blanket in her arms, a bundle that the back identified as “baby Noah.” According to the date, the photo was taken December 24, 2010, a mere 14 months from now.
As Peter stared at the picture, he knew he had only one option: he was going to have to destroy everyone’s normal lives after he had been the one to insist upon on going backwards.
* * *
Tracey Strauss’s Apartment, Alexandria, Virginia
“You never said how long you were planning on staying.”
Micah Sanders didn’t even bother to look up from the screen of his laptop, his fingers flying over the keyboard with lightning speed. “Until you kick me out, I guess.”
“Micah - “
“Why haven’t you told the Company that I’m here yet?” he asked, pulling up multiple pages at a time.
Tracey was quiet for a moment as she studied her nephew. While she had never met her sister and no one would ever accuse her of being an overly sentimental person, Tracey had felt a pull of familial duty when Micah had appeared on her doorstep two months before following the death of his great-aunt in New Orleans. Despite all of his power, he had seemed so pathetic standing on her doorstep with nothing but a duffel bag and a laptop, looking less like the mastermind of a revolt against Danko and more like the orphaned 13-year-old he was.
“I have nowhere else to go,” he had said, and Tracey, who knew the feeling, had offered up her couch.
She honestly didn’t know why she hadn’t told Noah and Angela that he was on her couch. It certainly would’ve earned her brownie points with people who didn’t trust her and perhaps even solidified her position in its power structure, but…for all of her politicizing of life, even she couldn’t use an adolescent as leverage.
“What are you doing?” she asked, sidestepping the question as she fastened her necklace.
“I’m researching and organizing suspicious attacks around the country that can be traced back to people with abilities, specifically Sylar.”
“Sylar’s dead,” she reminded him for the hundredth time since he had first professed that the psycho was alive.
“No, he’s not,” he replied in his infuriatingly calm voice. “But he’s also lying low. These deaths don’t have a defining MO and are spaced erratically across the country.”
“Then you should let the Company handle this. Don’t you do anything normal?”
“I’m also on AIM and Facebook,” he offered, closing out a window as his chat box popped up again. “You’re going to miss the train if you don’t hurry.”
With a sigh, Tracey ordered, “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”
Smiling, he called after her, “Love you, too, Aunt Tracey!”
Once his aunt was gone, Micah turned his attention back to the chat box he currently had up.
TheWalkerSystem: I hate his wife!!! She looks at me like I’m gonna kill her in her sleep. I miss NYC
RebelHawkins: Yeah, know what you mean. Tracey looks like my mom but definitely not her.
TheWalkerSystem: She believe you about Sylar yet?
RebelHawkins: You’re the only one who does
TheWalkerSystem: Tried to tell Matt but did not work out well. Now have to go to therapy for PTSD
RebelHawkins: I emailed Suresh but no answer yet. You try?
TheWalkerSystem: Called him last night. He’s in DC at Roosevelt U. Said he’ll be there for a few weeks
RebelHawkins: RU?
TheWalkerSystem: Shit. Janice coming..gtg. ttyl
Closing the chat box, Micah brought up Claire’s Facebook page. Like almost every other college girl, her profile pic was self-taken, Claire obviously holding the camera away and at an angle in order to capture her and the man she was kissing. According to the boxes, she was “in a relationship with Jamie Sullivan,” belonged to a group called “Texas Girls Make Better Lovers,” and had a slew of friends who left somewhat cryptic messages on her wall that all seemed to be some kind of inside joke or double entendre about her boyfriend. While Micah managed to keep himself from rolling his eyes at the cliché Claire had become, he was able to easily find her dorm address.
If he left now, he could be at the Roosevelt campus in an hour; he just hoped this wasn’t one of those stupid things Tracey had warned him not to do in her absence.
* * *
Ambrose Quadrangle, Roosevelt University, Washington DC
It was all Jamie’s fault, Claire decided, as she rushed across the quad in an attempt to make it to her 10am Comp class. He had insisted that she stay the night at his place due to a string of muggings that had taken place on campus over the past couple of weeks; that invitation had lead to a movie marathon, which had lead to a truly impressive amount of sex, which had lead to both of them sleeping through his alarm. It wasn’t until one of his roommates began to bang on the wall for them to turn it off that they had woken up, Jamie having already missed his Chem Lab and Claire, due in class in 15 minutes.
“Skip it,” Jamie had pled, attempting to keep her in the warm bed. “We’ll spend the day together.”
But she had already missed more than her allotted days and couldn’t afford for her grade to be docked, which was why she was now sprinting with all of her might, drowning in one of Jamie’s Army sweatshirts, her messenger bag banging against her thighs, trying to look at her watch to see just how late she was going to be.
It was as she tried to find out the time that she crashed hard into someone, sending herself spilling backwards onto her ass hard enough that, if she felt pain, she would’ve been crying from a broken tailbone.
“I’m so sorry,” she began, looking at the person she had nearly plowed over, and then she froze.
Sylar stared down at her, his dark hair neater and better kept than the last time she had seen him, a pair of thick, black glasses perched atop his nose; in his jeans and plaid button down, he looked so amazingly average that no one would have ever expected he had once terrorized her for sport.
She waited for her instinctive response to the sight of him: fear, panic, desperation; but it never came. Instead, as she stared up at the man who had killed her mother and friends, who had tried to kill everyone she knew, who had sawed open her skull, Claire realized that there was nothing left for Sylar to do to her.
“Hello, Claire.”
Ignoring the hand he extended to help her up, Claire pushed herself to her feet, her class forgotten. “What, no witty quip? No intimidating stance? You’re losing your touch.”
“I’m not here to hurt you.”
“I don’t care why you’re here. Just stay the fuck away from me.”
“See, I can’t do that. You’re the only one who can help me.”
Grabbing her bag from the ground, Claire growled, “The only thing I want to help you with is helping you find a way to commit suicide. We have absolutely nothing to talk about ever again, so if you want a head start before I call my dad, I’d go now.”
As Claire attempted to brush by him, Sylar grabbed her upper arm. “I suggest you stay.”
“Or what? What’ll you do, Gabriel, fix my watch?”
Claire saw the fury dance in his eyes, but, for reasons she didn’t understand, he didn’t lash out the way he once had. “Look, for the sake of time, we’ll both admit that I’m a fucking bastard and you hate everything about me. But I need your help.”
“I don’t care! There is nothing you could possibly say that would make me help you.”
“I’m not your Sylar. This isn’t my reality.”
“What does that even mean?!”
“Peter’s told you about alternate futures, right? When Sylar stole your power at Homecoming, it lead to everyone with powers being persecuted; when the virus was released, 97% of the population died; when everyone’s powers were revealed, you ended up working for Pinehearst. I’m from one of those alternates.”
“And assuming I believe you, which I don’t, what’s the story? How did you get here?”
“There’s a man named Samuel Sullivan; he’s been gathering people like us for years now in an attempt to overthrow the Company, to find the perfect people for an army that can create a superior race. He can pull people from time, Claire; that’s how he got me. Your Sylar died when Peter killed him in the limo, and Samuel stole me from my time, my reality.”
“I don’t believe you,” she reiterated.
Sylar reached into his pocket, removing his wallet. Flipping it open, he showed her a photo of a smiling, little boy with sandy blond hair and big brown eyes. “This is my son. He’s four and now I’m never going to see him again.” His dark eyes filling with tears, Sylar declared, “I’m stuck here and I need you to help me get back.”
“Why would you come to me? Why not go to Hiro?”
“Because…because you’re my best friend.”
Claire stared at him, dumbfounded, before asking, “Did you escape them?”
He nodded. “They’ve got Eric Doyle, Elle Bishop, Knox, Adam Monroe, and Maury Parkman already. I don’t know who else he’s going to try to pull out of time, but it’s going to get dangerous quickly.” Grasping her hands, he begged, “Please, Claire. I need you.”
She didn’t trust him. She wasn’t even sure she believed him. But it didn’t stop her from saying, “Come on. You’re wanted in, like, 29 states. We need to get inside.”
As she hurried him across campus, desperate to get to her room, she began to calculate who she should call first. If his story was true, her father was the wrong choice; he’d kill Sylar immediately. Peter wouldn’t accept her calls, she had no desire to call Nathan, and Angela…The only person she could think to call was someone she had no idea how to get in touch with.
Stepping off the elevator, Sylar at her back, Claire stilled at the sight of Micah Sanders leaning against her door. When he caught sight of the man behind her, he quickly climbed to his feet, prepared to run until he saw Claire’s fairly relaxed posture.
“What the hell?” was all he offered.
Claire shrugged, unlocking her door and pushing both guys through it. “What are you doing here, Micah?”
“Warning you about him and trying to get to Suresh. Why are you with him?”
“He claims there’s some super villain gathering other villains from different timelines.”
Micah looked at Sylar with interest. “Does his operation move?”
The older man nodded. “They front as a carnival.”
This time, everything clicked into place for Claire. Samuel Sullivan, carnival, Jamie’s reluctance to discuss his family…It was so much worse than she had thought.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” she sighed, sinking down onto her bed. Taking a minute to gather her thoughts, a minute to bid goodbye to the life she had made for herself free of this sort of insanity, she looked from Micah to the blander version of Sylar. Finally, she said, “We can’t ask the Company for help. They won’t believe your story, they definitely won’t let Micah and I help with anything, and, if you’re not Sylar, if you’re just Gabriel Gray…they’ll kill you. This carnival, my boyfriend…I think it’s his family. That’s our in. But we’re going to have to beat them at their own game.”
“How?” Gabriel asked.
“We’ll need a team,” she declared, her plan quickly forming. She had spent the last three years studying at the feet of Noah Bennet, of Angela Petrelli; she knew what it took to run an operation, to be an agent. Despite the lack of faith that her entire family seemed to have in her, she was born and bred for this; between Gordon and Petrelli blood with Bennet upbringing, there was no one more qualified to save the world.
“A team?” Micah echoed.
“People we can trust, people that will work outside the box and won’t be swayed by this guy’s power. Suresh and Matt, maybe; I know some guys, West and Alex, they might be able to help. And Hiro! We definitely need Hiro and maybe even that friend of his.”
“What about Peter?” Gabriel suggested.
“No! No, he won’t do anything without involving Nathan and Angela and my father; no one can know about this. We’re…we’re doing this by ourselves.”
“So you believe me?”
“I believe that, if this guy Samuel has Elle and Doyle and all those other psychos, we’re all in danger. Micah, can you get Hiro here?”
“I could get the Queen here,” he stated with arrogance, “but do you really think we can do this alone?”
Thinking of her family, of the way they had effectively put her out to pasture, put her in this kind of situation, Claire felt anger burn deeply inside of her. “I think it’s the only chance we have.”
* * *
Burnt Toast Diner, Texas
Hiro was in the middle of his daily breakfast ritual when his phone began to vibrate with a text message. Expecting Ando, he was pleasantly surprised to find a message waiting from Rebel.
It’s time to save the world again: dangerous, can tell no one, will need to work with people that you might hate. If you can do this, meet us at the Reflecting Pool in DC tonight at 9pm.
And so Hiro appeared at the meeting place in question, stunned to find Claire Bennet, Micah Sanders, Sylar, and Mohinder Suresh waiting for him, all of them holding a small bag in their hands.
“What - “
“We’re going to save the world,” Claire interrupted, steel in her voice, “and we’re doing it with only the people here. It’s going to sound crazy and any normal life that you had - that we had - we’ll have to give up. If you don’t want to do this, this is your last chance to say no.”
Hiro looked at the mishmash of people before nodding. “It is my destiny to save the world, but…He is a villain.”
Claire glanced at Gabriel, who had already been subjected to the same speech from Mohinder hours earlier. “Yeah, maybe…it’s complicated, but there are worse villains right now, Hiro, and the Company…They don’t care about us. They always fail at this.”
“But I thought…” Choosing his words carefully, Hiro ventured, “I thought you wanted to be normal again.”
“Well, it seems like it’s my destiny not to be. So we all agree then? We’ll go to Samuel’s carnival, we’ll join the ranks, we’ll do what it takes?”
Everyone murmured their assent, though Mohinder took a moment longer than the others. As they began to walk towards the van that Mohinder had rented, Claire’s Blackberry began to vibrate in her pocket. Pulling it out, she glanced at the display screen to see who was calling her.
As Peter Petrelli flashed in block letters, Claire hit “ignore.”