The first things that Claire felt when she regained consciousness were two warm hands. One was cupping her face, and another was holding her wrist, whoever’s thumb it was unconsciously caressing her skin.

She began to stir, and the hands hastily ripped themselves away, leaving Claire with a feeling of bareness. A young man’s familiar voice said her name, and her eyelids began to flutter open. Groaning and clutching her side, she tried to lean up, and a strong hand on her back helped her sit upright.

“Hey…hey…are you okay?” Peter asked, peering at her pained expression. Claire roughly coughed a couple times, then managed to get her vision straight. There her hero was, his dark hair flopping into his concerned eyes. Claire’s breath caught in her throat at the sight. She’d forgotten that she’d seen him…had he been invisible, or was that just a concussion coming on?

“Fine,” she gasped out, already feeling her various cuts and bruises healing. Claire glanced up and saw that Peter had a gash steadily healing on his own forehead. “What’s with..this…you..I think I saw you…” she continued, shaking.

“C’mon,” he ignored her questions, rather sternly. “We need to go somewhere else to talk.”

People were starting to rubberneck; staring at them and making Claire feel even more like a freak show. She nodded and Peter pulled her to her feet. He gastrulated for her to follow him, and he briskly walked across the street and onto the sidewalk. Claire remained at his heels.

They reached the intersection where Claire had first heard her name called (obviously by him, she noted), and right before her eyes, Peter vanished into thin air.

“Peter!” she cried, whipping her head around and searching for her lost savior. Two fingers brushed her elbow. She turned back around and saw Peter standing there, looking slightly sheepish.

“Oh, I forgot about…” he muttered. “Just…come here.”

He took a firmer grip on her arm, and directed her to the café table that he had Claude had occupied. Claude was reclining in his wire chair, looking surly with Peter.

“What did I tell you about getting a hold on your distractions?” he reproached. Peter blew off Claude’s comment and pulled out a chair for Claire. Even though she sat down comfortably, Peter did not let go of her forearm.

“Sorry if this makes you feel weird,” he explained, his eye line going to their awkward positioning, “but I have to be touching you so you can see us.” He expected a puzzled expression to come on Claire’s face, but surprisingly, she was rather calm. Then again, this was the girl that could grow back her limbs. Nothing would shock her anymore.

“So you’re invisible? How are you doing that?” she asked quizzically. Peter exposited about his ability to absorb powers, and his mentor, Claude.

“My dreams predict the future too,” he continued (“He thinks,“ Claude retorted), “and I saw you, here. Today. I knew something was gonna happen to you.”

“You knew you had to save me,” Claire blushed, with a breezy giggle. “Again.”

This prompted a self-conscious smile from Peter. “You saved me too. Again,” he added, making Claire smile more, though a tad perplexed. “A few days ago, I got killed.” He shot a glare at Claude. “Claude threw me off a 30-story building.”

Claire’s eyes went as wide as saucers. “You fell off another building? And lived? How?”

Peter shrugged, honestly clueless. “I used your power by remembering you. So, thanks,” he said, briefly grinning at her out of the corner of his mouth. Claude interrupted again, waving his arm around.

“Wait just a wee second. So this is that cheerleader, that ‘sweet girl with the sad smile’, eh?” He asked, inspecting Claire. At his comment, Claire’s face began to pink, but her humiliation did not match Peter’s. Peter was now officially convinced that Claude was making an effort to get him arrested. She was just a kid for crying out loud, and Claude had made it seem like…

Suddenly, he became a lot more aware of Claire’s wrist encircled in his hand. He released his grasp, touching her just enough so that she could see him. Coughing awkwardly, he grasped at straws, trying to change the subject.

“Er…why are you in New York, Claire?” he asked, trying to be nonchalant. “It’s not exactly in the same zip code as Odessa.”

“I’m looking for my father,” Claire supplied quietly. “My bio-father. I’m…adopted and all, so I started looking for my birth parents. I wondered if they were like me. I did find my mom,” she added cheerfully. “She told me that my dad had said he’d come to New York. His name was Lewis Rushton, but he’s not in the phone book.”

Why she was telling him all of these secrets, spilling her heart out, Claire didn’t know. Peter was barely more then a stranger, and even though he had been kind in saving her, she still had no idea about his past. What if Peter worked for her father, just a pawn that Gregory Bennet had used to “protect” his little girl at homecoming? It wouldn’t surprise her one bit. Peter could have been planted there in front of that trophy case lest Claire decided to sneak out…then she’d still be safe. How could she explain her adoptive father’s proximity to the stadium? And the fact that he had already called the police? So many questions flooded her tired mind, clenching her heart at the thought that the caring, handsome individual touching her arm could be a double agent.

After all, everything else had been taken from her.

A shattering sound from the other side of the table broke her concentration. The British man, Claude, had accidentally hit the bottom of his ale bottle on the side of the table. He stood up, cursing, and trying to wipe off the booze that was dripping from his clothes.

Peter reached a hand across the table and tapped to get Claude’s attention.

“Shhh!” he hissed. “Sit down!”

Café customers around them had gone silent and were murmuring about the shards of broken glass, voices, and earsplitting noise that had just come out of thin air. Claude glared down at his pupil.

“I thought I was supposed to be the one scolding the disobedient puppy,” quipped Claude and Peter rolled his eyes. Instead of sitting back down, though, Claude brushed off his coat a little more and began to walk away.

“I’ll see you later, Lassie,” he said to Peter, clapping the young man on the shoulder before continuing off. Peter stood up indignantly, and followed after, forgetting about Claire and what couldn’t be seen with her plain eyes.

“Peter?” she quivered, staring at the spot to which he had just evaporated. A few seconds later, the chair beside her moved back and Peter came to again, his elbows resting on the table tiredly.

“Where are you staying?” he asked after a moment.

“The Liberty Inn. It’s this hotel up the road,” she replied, half of her knowing what the next thing Peter was about to say.

“It’s dangerous for you to be here alone. That murderer- he’s still out there, and if he could find you before, he can do it again.”

Claire looked away, uncomfortable. “I know. But I couldn’t stay at home anymore. My adoptive father, he-.” Here, she paused, biting her lip. Peter leaned forward a tad, expecting her to continue, but Claire remembered what she told herself about Peter’s possible motives. For once, she held her tongue before she could go on.

“Never mind,” she announced. “Things weren’t right there, that’s all.”

Peter was frowning at her abrupt turn, but he did not pressure her into any further questioning. Instead, he persisted with his original topic.

“You’re welcome to crash at my apartment…it’s really the only place I can think of. I haven’t really been in contact with anyone lately, except Claude. And you can’t stay with him, obviously…” He trailed off, hoping he wasn’t being too forward and, he feared, creepy. Peter was a twenty six year old man that went racing to Texas to find a minor. A cheerleader, no less. Anyone with a freak sense at all would hold up the “Pervert” sign.

But these were desperate times, and Claire luckily seemed to trust that he wasn’t like that at all.

“Sure…” Claire replied quietly. “I guess it couldn’t hurt to be near someone I know.”

Peter found himself beaming. “Great. Let’s go get your stuff.”

Claire didn’t know what to expect of Peter’s apartment. She’d never been inside a big city apartment anyway, but she had anticipated walking into Jerry Seinfeld’s homely pad. Or something. In reality, Peter Petrelli’s apartment was huge, but dreary, and had a blue tint to everything. Claire saw it as a sort of shadowed beauty. Still, it didn’t fit Peter, who she thought would have had a colorful, cheery loft.

An hour prior, they’d been at the Liberty Inn guest services counter, Peter footing the bill for all Claire’s expenses. She’d protested, but he said that after all the trouble she’d been through, it was the least he could do. Claire softly laughed, wondering if saving her life (twice), taking her in to his apartment, and spending $75 on a hotel bill was the least Peter could do, what was the most he was capable of?

Unfortunately, the cute bellhop who had flirted with Claire, Frankie, waltzed into the lobby just as Peter was picking up Claire’s luggage. Claire caught Frankie’s eye and waved, but Frankie just stared at Peter, sniffing slightly. Claire glanced from her hero to her acquaintance, Frankie’s assumption sinking in. Claire’s eyes were insecurely downcast, as she wasn’t going to waste breath explaining the whole situation to some bellhop. Off a nudge in her arm by Peter, who was making a motion to follow him, Claire’s mellowly content resolve returned, and she shouldered her way through the hotel’s revolving door.

At the present time, they were both sitting on the roof of the apartment building. It was the last stop on Peter’s “tour” and Claire had insisted that they stay up there for a little while, just enjoying the view. Peter smiled, internally acknowledging that Claire didn’t get to see skyscraper sunsets everyday.

The silence between them was oddly serene, yet Peter found the moment opportune to actually learn something about his damsel in distress. Before, he hadn’t even thought about her favorite food, her grades, her friends, or heck, even her age! But being her hero wasn’t enough…he was still a stranger, and she to him. Getting on a friendly basis wouldn’t hurt.

“What’s your favorite color, Claire?” he asked innocently. Claire let out a light giggle.

“Why do you ask?”

Peter shrugged. “We’re going to be living together. I figured that we should get to know each other a bit, at the very least.”

Claire was still chuckling. “Yellow. I like yellow.”

Peter arched an eyebrow, interested. “Really? I’ve never met anyone who liked yellow.”

“Yeah, most people like blue or black,” agreed Claire softly.

“Me,” admitted Peter. “Almost all my clothes are those colors.”

Claire noted his current navy blue dress polo, black trench coat, and jeans as proof. Another aspect of Peter that Claire had not expected, along with his apartment. When she’d first met him, he’d been wearing light colors; blue and tan. Now, his wardrobe had darkened in contrast.

“How did you find out about your powers?” asked Claire, delving into the more personal territory.

Peter released a heavy sigh. “That’s a long story,” he chuckled. “It all started when I jumped off this building because I thought I could fly.”

“Another building? Wait…so what is that, three, now? How’d you survive that time?”

Peter was avoiding her eyes sheepishly, and Claire decided to let the mocking go.

“Yeah, that was my first jump. I lived because my brother caught me.” Peter didn’t tell her about Nathan’s ability to fly, but rather, told her about how he had painted the future, and eventually came to realize that he could absorb the powers of others. Claire felt herself growing to trust him as he spieled on, telling her rather secretive things about himself. If he was a plant of her father’s, he was doing a damn fine job at not showing it.

“So right now I can fly, paint the future, turn invisible, regenerate,” Peter counted the powers off on his fingers, soon having to switch to two hands, “read minds, my dreams predict the future, and I can probably bend time and space, since I was around Hiro Nakamura from the future. He was from the future, but I was still around him, so I guess that still counts.” Peter lowered his hands and finished his list with a shrug and a gaze out onto the horizon. Claire was gaping at him.

“How…how can you do all that? That’s amazing!” She exclaimed, astounded. Peter looked back at her, clueless.

“I don’t know how. It just…happened. Like your powers. Which…how did you discover you had yours?”

“I threw myself off a building,” Claire grinned, prompting a smile in return from Peter.

“Is that really what happened?”

“Sort of. I did throw myself off a 100 foot high oil rig, but that was my sixth test.”

Peter’s eyes widened. “Sixth? What were tests one through five?”

“I got hit by a car…I stabbed myself in the chest..,” Claire went on, starting a long list of her own. Except this list made her feel more foolish and juvenile then Peter’s count of extraordinary powers. “I stuck a steel pole in my neck…but the way I found out I could heal myself was when I cut my hand on this glass cabinet about six months ago.”

“Six months ago? That’s when I had my first predictive dream.”

Claire didn’t reply, but smiled tightly, mostly lacking something to say.

“I’ve also burned my hands on a hot pan…this quarterback hit me and my neck broke…I stuck my hand down a garbage disposal…” Here, she stopped, looking at Peter seriously. “I know you’re indestructible too, but never, ever do that one. It actually does kind of hurt, and your hand looks so gross afterward.”

“Okay,” Peter promised, not moving a hair. He just stared at her, openmouthed and aghast at all the terrible things she had done to herself. They could have been lethal…but who was he to judge? He could have died himself from his not-so-flight-of-fancy.

“I did do something useful once,” she assured him, finding herself in an unusually talkative mood. “I saved this guy from a burning train car.”

She’d never told anyone that before, save for Jackie, before she was murdered. But it didn’t matter anymore. She was sitting on a roof, fifteen hundred miles away from anyone at that high school that could call her a freak. Not expecting much out of the comment, she just shrugged and looked out the oncoming sunset. But Peter was gazing at her intensely.

“That was you? You did that, not that Jackie Wilcox girl?”

Claire was stunned at how he could know that, then she recalled their hallway conversation.

“Oh yeah, you asked me about that, didn’t you? That seems like a really long time ago.”

“Just three weeks. Not even that long.” Peter concurred. “Of course, it doesn’t feel like so long ago to me. I was in a coma for most of it.”

Claire reeled back. “A coma? How?”

Peter shook his head. “I’m still not quite sure. But I had a predictive dream…”

For once in their conversation, he paused, not spilling his heart out like he had before. A shadow was cast over his eyes, and Claire noticed. She scooted a bit closer to him on the roof ledge and examined his lost expression.

“What..uh…,” Claire swallowed. “What happened in it?”

Peter moistened his lips. “I…blow up New York,” he choked.

Claire would have laughed at the ridiculousness of this statement, had it not been for Peter’s super somber face at that moment. Claire sniffed, erasing any humor from her mind, and she tentatively reached out and touched his arm.

“Hey,” she whispered. “If it makes you feel better, I’ve had some sucky things happen in my life too these past few weeks.”

“You’re exploding in a nuclear blast and killing three million people too?”

Claire smiled. “No, I admit. Your life does suck more.” Surprisingly, Peter smiled back, though his pained eyes were still grim as they looked at her while she talked.

“My adoptive father’s lied to me my whole life, and because of him, my mom’s dying. My real mom, not…my bio-mom,” Claire muttered, scowling slightly. “I watched my former best friend die in front of me at Homecoming. My true best friend had his memories erased and he barely knew who I was. I got killed and woke up on an autopsy table, all cut open, twenty miles from home.”

She debated whether she should tell him about Brody trying to rape her. It was something she’d only told her father and Zach, and Zach didn’t remember, and her father was a lying bastard. Peter deserved to know more than Bennet ever did.

Claire was looking at the floor, more angry then sad. She’d gotten over being upset for the things she was being put through. She’d learned to rise up and figure out why this was happening.

“It doesn’t matter,” Claire said, looking at him square in the eyes. “I’ve grown so much over this past month…It’s been so hard, it almost cruel. It is cruel. But now I know it’s not just me. The world is harsh to everyone, especially you. Other people like us. All the things I thought were so important don’t matter anymore. One month ago all I cared about was making Brody Mitchum think that I was pretty. Two weeks after that all I cared about was getting back at Brody Mitchum because he tried to rape me. One week after that the only…thing…I cared about…was that I was homecoming queen, and my dad was being so mean because he wouldn’t let me go to the game. Like it was the worst thing he could ever do to me.”

“You…” murmured Peter, gazing at the small blonde girl beside him in absolute awe. “That was incredible.”

Claire smiled at him sadly, and it finally made sense to Peter why her bright smile was so tainted. He’d no idea all the things that she’d had to face…and how maturely she was taking them all in and handling it. She had a better grip on things then he did, for Christ’s sake.

“I wish you were the one exploding,” he said, and was quick to explain off her offended look. “You’d be able to control it. You’d be able to stop it.”

“Why can’t you stop it?” Claire asked fiercely. “You saved me, why can’t you save New York?”

“It’s…different. I was saving you from someone else, not myself.”

“It’s harder to save people from others,” said Claire wisely. “All you have to do to stop yourself is to take a deep breath and…stop.”

Peter chuckled bitterly. “It’s not that easy, trust me. The last time Claude said that the only thing I had to do was breathe, I almost got arrested for petty theft.”

Claire mentally thought up an analogy to self-control when it came to cupcakes, but she didn’t dare mention it aloud. Yet, Peter’s ears perked up and he looked at her, smiling crookedly just like she remembered.

“What did you just say about cupcakes?”

Claire’s face reddened. “Nothing,” she said honestly.

“Were you thinking about it, or something? Then I must have read your mind. Sorry, I can’t really control when stuff like that happens.”

“Its fine,” Claire said hurriedly, only daring to take a peak up at him. What she found made it hard for her to look away.

He was staring at her, but not pervertedly, or like a turncoat. His gaze was innocent, full of understanding, and instead of letting his eye line drop to her curves like most guys she was around, his look stayed on her face. Or more specifically, her eyes. Claire looked deeply into his own eyes, trying to get a hold on what Peter Petrelli was all about. She could tell he was sweet, selfless and kind, but the darkness that was stalking him had already altered his persona. A broken record played behind his warm eyes, slowly frosting over his normally uplifting resolve.

After a few seconds, the gawkiness set in and Peter cleared his throat purposefully.

“I…I’m gonna go start on dinner,” he stuttered, feigning casualness. “Come downstairs in the next twenty minutes, okay?”

Claire silently nodded and watched him go, the hem of his black trench coat rippling behind Peter like a smoky evil sneaking up to devour him. Claire shuddered and heard the door slam.

The flaming orb in the sky was almost below the horizon and she hoped that it wouldn’t be one of the last times the world would get to see a sunset.