Heroes fic: A Problem Of Categorization (1/2)
Title: A Problem Of Categorization (1/2)
Pairing: Peter/Claire
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1, 218
Spoilers: General S1
A/N: Third story in my "Unrelated" series. Immediately follows We Were Never Good At Being Uncle And Niece and I'd suggest you read that one first unless you feel like being confused. :)
It was all a problem of categorization, Peter realized one day with sudden clarity. He'd slotted Claire into certain categories after they'd met and some of those categories had been mutually exclusive.
Girl he saved - that was a given. Save the cheerleader, save the world. God, that seemed like so long ago.
Girl who'd saved him was next on the list. He smiled at the memory of waking up to see Claire's relieved face above him, her hand holding a bloody shard of glass.
Best friend - they'd grown into that one gradually.
Niece.
Peter took a deep breath and leaned against the ledge of the Deveaux building roof. He came up here sometimes to think and he'd been doing a lot of thinking lately.
Niece was the categorization, forced upon him by fate, that had knocked so many others out of the running. Sure, he'd been with Simone at the time, however briefly, and yes Claire had only been in high school, but it was hard to deny the connection they felt with each other when they met.
"When I met you I finally felt like I was part of something," she had said once. He'd replied, "It's funny. I felt the same thing when I met you."
Soulmate.
That was a category that almost got dropped until he was able to rationalize that there could be friends that were soulmates. That had to be possible, he'd assured himself. Plus, he couldn't think of another category that covered the same feelings. He'd tried to slot it into Family, but that never felt quite right. Best friend was close, but didn't completely cover it. He'd asked Claire about soulmates being just friends once (not mentioning how it concerned them) and after a slight frown she'd gone on to elaborate the intricacies of Joey and Dawson's relationship on Dawson's Creek.
There were so many times where he wondered what it might have been like if he and Claire weren't related, although he'd always pushed those thoughts to the furthest corners of his mind. He felt comfortable with her the way he never had with any other woman, not with any of his other girlfriends and certainly not with his mother.
Now it turned out they weren't related and Peter wasn't quite sure how to handle it.
His time with Claire had been quieter lately. She still hung out at his apartment after classes and they still had their movie nights, but they didn't talk as much or laugh as much. When they did, it felt slightly forced.
He'd taken to staring at her for long periods of time, as if just looking at her face would help him piece his broken life together the same way thinking of her face had saved his life once upon a time.
She never said anything when she caught him looking. He could tell that she was waiting for him to say something and wouldn't bring it up before he did. She was giving him time and space to heal and think through everything. He knew that.
He also knew that she thought he was thinking about his mother and his brother (could he even call them that anymore?) when he was really thinking about her. He should've been thinking about Nathan who was no longer his brother and Simon and Monty who were no longer his nephews, but all he could think about was Claire who was no longer his niece.
Maybe, Peter thought from his solitary position on the roof, he focused on Claire because focusing on Nathan would be too painful. The fraternal loss might break him.
When he thinks of Claire after his mother's sudden revelation, he doesn't feel pain. All he can feel is relief.
He let that relief flood him as the sun went down and then he headed back to his apartment for another night alone. As he crawled into bed he told himself life wouldn't always be this complicated, and he almost let himself believe it.
-
She started doing little things to try and make him feel better, like make him cupcakes and send him silly e-mails. She hugged him more than she used to and he was glad.
One time, about a month after he discovered they weren't related, he looked over at Claire and she smiled at him and he couldn't help but smile back. He found himself thinking, "I could kiss her now if I wanted to."
Then he felt guilty and didn't talk to her for a week.
When he apologized and muttered something about it being a reflex, she looked confused but didn't ask him to elaborate.
They sat outside on a bench in Central Park two months after he found out. He touched her golden locks and let his hand linger a moment too long.
"A leaf," he said in response to her questioning glance. He opened his hand and let the piece of foliage fall to the ground. He wished he could touch her hair without having an excuse.
Three months after he found out, things were back to normal except that Nathan wasn't his brother (although they still acted like it) and Claire wasn't his niece. He and Claire still had their movie nights, only now they were more often at his apartment than Nathan's house and the movie nights felt more like dates than hanging out with a relative.
He started to let himself think about her in ways he'd never let himself before. He's imagined kissing her without feeling guilty.
Peter was fairly sure that Claire felt attracted to him the same way he felt attracted to her, but in the last and only conversation they had about it, she used the past tense. He desperately wanted to read her mind, but it would've been an invasion of privacy. The one time he did it accidentally, he had to listen to her call him a liar in a heartbreakingly betrayed tone of voice. He might not like what he heard this time either, so he didn't give into the temptation.
Suddenly, he became the one touching her more instead of the other way around. He constantly put his arm around her on movie nights and whenever she leaned into him he wondered "What if?" He brushed strands of hair out of her face and pressed his hand against her upper arm whenever he wanted to point something out.
They went to one of Nathan's fundraisers and he asked her to dance. The back of her satin dress dipped low and when he put his arms around her, his hands touched bare skin. He lost himself in the dance and in her. "That was fun," she said afterwards before reaching up a hand to ruffle his hair. "I don't like it all slicked back," she added and he decided never wear it like that ever again.
Peter spent more time on the rooftop of the Deveaux building thinking lately. Most of the time he thought about her. One night while he sat up there and watched the sun go down, he realized that he loved her and not in the way he thought he did before when they were related. He really loved her and didn't know what the hell to do about it.