Chapter Five

“Nightmares and Miracles”

Peter Petrelli woke up yawning.

He was awake rather early, blinking to clear the foggy glaze off of his eyes.

Stumbling out of his bed, he clumsily walked and leaned onto his bedroom vanity. Sighing at the sight of his hair- it would take yet another twenty minutes out of his life just to fix it for another day- he bent in and studied the subtly handsome, but slightly gawky man staring back. Peter had never been a narcissist; in fact, he wasn’t too terribly fond of his reflection. But humans naturally seem to like looking in mirrors, just to make sure they’re still…there.

Peter found the side of his mouth turning into a small smile. He was still here, all together, about to live another day…when the image staring back at him morphed into his worst plague.

“You think you can stop it?” sneered an irate gaze, taking the place of where Peter’s reflection had been just seconds before.

“You still don’t even know what powers are!” Sylar was laughing, taunting him just like he had in the jail cell. Peter yelped and fell away from his vanity, heart pounding in his chest and ears ringing with Sylar’s maniacal chortling.

Peter Petrelli woke up screaming.

Claire jolted awake when Peter was in mid-scream, her heart flashing tense at the sound. She tried to figure out her surroundings; she was in Peter’s bed, alone, in the middle of the night, and Peter was sitting upright on the couch, panting.

“Peter!” she cried, rushing into the bathroom and filling up his rinse glass with water. She rushed over to him, flicking on a lamp as she made her way to the couch. Peter’s eyes automatically narrowed at the sudden light, making him see fuzzy spots before his eyes.

“Peter…Peter, what’s wrong?” asked Claire frantically, placing the glass of water delicately in his hands. He drank it gratefully, wiping the cold sweat off his face.

Peter tried to catch his breath and sit up, taking another gulp of water before replying.

“I had another dream. One of my…real dreams.”

Claire looked at him sympathetically, pulling up the coffee table so she could sit on it, talking to him at eye level.

“What’d you see? What’s gonna happen? Did you explode?”

“No, no,” Peter replied slowly. “It wasn’t precognitive. It was just…I don’t even know how to explain. It wasn’t so horrible, it was…bizarre. Shocking.”

“Try to describe it,” urged Claire gently. She knew she was prying, but she really wanted to help him. Peter looked uncomfortable, as if he wasn’t so certain he wanted to indulge her.

“I, uh…” he stuttered. “I looked in a mirror and…”

Claire reached out and squeezed his wrist. “And?”

“That guy that tried to kill you…he was there. He was my reflection, and he told me that I can’t stop it; I don’t anything about power.”

Her hand flying to her mouth, Claire looked upon his distressed face with her grey, understanding eyes.

“Who is he, what’s him name?” she whispered, barely audible.

“I don’t know,” choked Peter. “He was another one of my dreams. That night of homecoming when I was in the jail cell. He said the same thing to me, about power. I got a good look at his face too, but I’m not sure if that’s what he really looks like, or if my mind’s just making things up…”

“Not in your dreams,” Claire shook her head. “This has to mean something. Jackie bought this book in middle school about dreams. It said that sugar cubes mean, like, danger’s coming and stuff.”

Peter chuckled and then said sarcastically, “Well, I didn’t see any sugar cubes so my nerves are completely calmed, Claire, thanks.”

He paused, and then took on a more serious face.

“In my dream…I turned into that guy…and two days ago I used his powers. They’ve gotta be connected, everything’s connected.”

“What are you gonna do about it?”

Peter exhaled loudly. “The only thing I can do is keep trying to control my powers. I don’t know what this guy has to do with me exploding…but if I’m stronger I can take him on. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing him soon.”

Claire’s eyes flashed in fear and she took in a sharp breath. Peter tried to smile at her weakly.

“Don’t worry,” he told her confidently. “I’ll train with Claude all day tomorrow. Alone. I don’t need any distractions. I’ll get Nathan or Mohinder or someone to come over and watch you.”

Claire frowned. “Watch me? I’m seventeen, I don’t need-,”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Peter silenced her, holding up a finger. “It’s just that it’s dangerous. I’d be worried sick if you were alone here all day.”

Claire ignored the pleasurable squirm in her stomach at his concern, and opted for sighing helplessly.

“If it’ll help you,” she said solemnly. “I’ll do whatever. And while we’re at it…”

Claire pushed the coffee table back to its original spot and grabbed Peter’s hands, pulling him off the couch. She pointed towards the bedroom.

“Sleep in there tonight. I’ll take the couch.”

“Claire-…”

“You need it more than I do, okay?”

The look of care that she gave him made it impossible for Peter to decline her kind offer.

“Alright,” he said quietly. “But you go back to it tomorrow night.”

Claire was too tired to argue, so she simply shrugged. Peter gave both of her arms a grateful rub before turning and heading back to his giant bed. Claire yawned and lay down on the green, itchy couch. How could Peter have survived on this thing? She could barely fit on it herself; how did he manage with nine inches of height on her?

Even though she was uncomfortable, she wouldn’t have changed her offer for the world. It was the very minimum she give to her hero.

Peter Petrelli and Claude Raines

Columbus Park, New York

“In through your nose and out through your mouth.”

“I know how to breathe, Claude.”

Claude scoffed. “Oh, spare me.”

Peter rolled his eyes, sitting cross-legged on a patch of grass in Columbus Park. Claude had found it too noisy, but Peter, on the contrary, was unnerved by quiet. New York was his home, and the sound of traffic was comforting rather than distracting.

Even with his harbor of annoyance, Peter still obeyed his mentor. Claude was talking to him about unlocking new powers; the show of telekinesis on the roof was proof that even Peter himself wasn’t aware of his maximum potential.

“Focus back, particularly to that killer. You probably took in a gold mine of abilities just by being around him. Try to feel them out, unlock them.”

Relaxing some more, Peter tried to imagine the murderer in his mind. Thick eyebrows…a baseball cap and heavy stubble…piercing dark features…and from what Peter could remember, a very tall, broad-shouldered, but lanky frame. Claude noticed a shudder go through his apprentice.

“I see him,” Peter murmured. “Now what?”

“You’ve got to do more than just see him,” Claude growled impatiently. “You’ve got to feel him. That’s what you’re supposedly so good at, right?”

Peter bit back a retort, still trying to remain in his meditative zone.

What was this man made of? Ruthlessness and insanity, obviously. But how could Peter feel that? He needed to peer deeper…into emotions. Expressions.

“I…I don’t think he’s that angry,” Peter mused, frowning. “More frustrated.”

“How do you know?”

“I dunno!” the young man snapped. “I just do, alright?”

Claude put his hand over his heart in mock-horror. “What a temper the pup has this morning!”

“Shut up,” Peter barked, “you’re breaking my focus.”

Seeming to agree, Claude obliged without question. Peter inhaled deeper, trying to sense the killer even stronger. A cold heart…a hunger…so bitter that Peter could practically feel the ice on his fingertips…

“…Peter?” asked Claude hesitantly.

Peter angrily shushed him, but Claude called his name again, more insistently. Peter opened one eye and saw Claude pointing to the ground. Arching a confused eyebrow, he slowly tilted his eye line to the grass that he was sitting on.

“Oh God,” Peter gasped. The grass around him was no longer lively and green; it was frozen.

“How…how did I…?” he rambled, standing up to inspect the frosted plant life. A plate of rime extended a foot radius from where Peter was sitting, and then it just stopped, as though the still vivid grass was not an inch from destruction.

Claude clapped his hands in glee. “Looks like you just found a new power, mate!”

“Ice?” asked Peter, aghast. “How can anyone have ice?”

“How can anyone fly?” retaliated Claude stridently. “These things don’t make sense, they’re just there. And don’t go shunning the ice, that’s a damn useful ability.”

“I focused on his past,” whispered the pupil. “Why he’s the way he is…he’s looking for something, but he can’t find it. And this, this power here, is what I got out of it?”

Claude’s eyes darkened. “Dissatisfaction can make any man cold.”

“Yeah,” Peter concurred absently. “But what’s he looking for? Why’s he killing people?”

Claude shrugged, coming out of his reverie. “Search me. He’s a maniac; their only motive is the next victim.”

Peter shook his head. “No, no. That’s not what this is about. He’s not crazy.” Claude snorted disbelievingly and Peter leveled with him. “Well yeah, okay, he-he is, he kills people…but that’s not why he’s doing it. He’s still so powerful too…but people with great power only want more, right?”

Stoking his beard, Claude began to get Peter’s train of thought. “What does power have to do with murder? You don’t honestly think that he can take their powers?”

“I can take their powers; is it really that hard to believe?”

Claude pointed a stern finger at Peter’s chest. “You were born like that; it’s embedded into your DNA. If someone cuts your throat, he would not be able to just do what you do. It doesn’t work that way, Peter.”

“This guy’s not just anyone though!” cried Peter, waving his arms around frantically. “What if-what if…he’s like me, he just…absorbs their powers through violence or something?”

Claude sighed and turned around, rubbing his forehead tiredly. “You’re ‘round the bend, you know that? That theory doesn’t make any sense at all!”

“He could drink their blood, ingest their DNA in some way and his ability merges it with his own.”

“Oh, so now we’re chasing a vampire, is that it?”

Peter groaned, grasping for some sort of explanation to support his long-shot thesis.

“Wait a minute-,” he breathed, a light bulb going off in his head. “Chandra Suresh. He wrote this book, Activating Evolution. It talked about everyone’s abilities…and how everything is based in the brain. These powers; all of it’s in the brain!”

Claude grumbled. “If you say what I think you’re about to say-.”

Peter ignored him. “He takes their brain, that’s it! Claire said that he cut open Jackie’s head…and that painting that I finished had a picture of a cheerleader with the top of her head cut off!”

“What about the ingesting part, eh?” Claude pointed out. “Listen, your boy’s not Sir Anthony Hopkins. It’s a coincidence! If he thought he was killing an indestructible girl, how else would he go about doing it? The only way she can probably die is without her brain.”

Peter wouldn’t budge from his stance. “He could have ripped her heart out. Or her liver. Or any organ, really. Why the brain? Because it’s important.” He was shouting now, though half the time he was around Claude he found himself raising his voice. “Why won’t you have an open mind about this?”

“You’re telling me that he eats brains!” Claude yelled, grabbing Peter by the lapels and shaking him, as though the madness could just fall out.

Pushing Claude off of him like he had done so many times, Peter put a thoughtful hand to his lips.

Claude was right; it sounded ridiculous. But what other explanation was there? It all fit: the brain as the core, Jackie, a motive for killing, and the reason why this man was so powerful.

“He needs a name,” Peter said aloud, a spare thought that had bothered him for a while now. “We can’t just call him ‘the killer’ all the time.”

“Well, look for his name,” Claude replied, as though it were obvious.

Peter mulled it over for a second, trying to bring memories of the hooded stranger back. The whole situation, his whole being, merged into one name that flashed to Peter in lightning form.

“Gabriel,” he announced.

“A messenger angel? Oh, that’s fitting,” Claude said sardonically.

“What do you want me to call him, Charles Manson? Cut me some slack, it just came to me. It’s better than no name at all.”

“How ‘bout Hannibal, eh? Or Dracula? Those are rather appropriate from your theory, don’t you think?” Claude mocked, prompting Peter to fall into an embarrassed seethe.

“Don’t even worry about this, lad,” Claude continued in a more friendly tone. “You’ve got no business with…Gabriel, if we must call him that. If you go after him, all you’re gonna do is wind up cut into tiny pieces and stashed in a freezer. And trust me, even you couldn’t heal from that.”

Peter’s face was firm. “He’s still after Claire. My dream was proof of that! I can’t just stand here and do nothing!”

“You’re wasting your time worrying!” howled Claude. “It was a dream! Do you really expect for him to appear in your mirror one day?”

“No, but-,”

“Say it with me, now. It. Was. A. Dream!”

There was no convincing him, so Peter gave up trying to argue. He knew it had been more than just a dream; a vision. It wasn’t as mad or hypothetical enough to be any old dream.

“You’re getting carried away,” proclaimed Claude, crossing his arms over his chest. “Just because you’re a demi-god doesn’t mean you’re right all the time.”

“Claire is in danger-,”

“Claire, Claire, Claire,” Claude scoffed. “She’s indestructible! Did you ever fathom a thought that she might not need your protection?”

As always, there was a good point behind Claude’s rant. Peter had been so wrapped up in the mission that he hadn’t been able to use his common sense. Claire could probably get run over with a lawnmower and still have her hair in perfect waves; she didn’t need him to monitor her every flinch.

Yet, even with this revelation, his heart did not harden, nor did he stop believing in his role as her protector. Funny that, how he himself barely knew anything about being a bodyguard, but he still managed to feel confident and hell-bent on taking any blow for a girl he hardly knew.

“I’m still keeping an eye out for him,” Peter replied stubbornly, planting his feet into the last word. “People like that don’t just disappear, and he didn’t get what he was after the first time. For some reason, I have a feeling that Gabriel doesn’t like that too much, and he’s gonna come looking for it again. Claire. And since I stood in his way before, he’s bound to be ten times as determined to kill me too.”

“It’d solve the exploding problem,” Claude said. Peter would have taken offense, but he’d been around Claude so much now that he knew when the other man was joking.

Peter didn’t reply. He picked his trench coat up off the sunny ground, slid his arms through the sleeves, and flipped his collar up so it grazed his ears.

“Never can be too careful,” sighed Claude helplessly. Peter nodded tersely, eyes mysteriously more ebony than usual. He turned and walked down the sidewalk, fading into visibility as Claude shimmered away. Peter missed sight of the phenomenon; he did not look back.

Claire Bennet

Peter’ Apartment

Daytime soaps had two uses for Claire: something to watch while she was sick, and a great time slot for make-up commercials. Needless to say, the latter made her ashamed of her former self.

On this particular afternoon, she was, for once, actually interested in Passions. After a lot of arguing with himself, Peter had settled on Heidi to be Claire’s babysitter. A wheel chaired woman could hardly hold her own in a fight, but this was more about calming Peter’s own paranoia then trying to find the Incredible Hulk to protect Claire.

On any other occasion, Peter would have turned to Nathan first, or even perhaps Simone. But Nathan and Mohinder would most likely probe his DNA, and he wasn’t on the best terms with Simone or Isaac. Heidi, on the other hand, was someone who knew how to keep her lips sealed. And, to his shock, he had already been acquainted with Claire.

This forced Claire to sheepishly admit that she had been looking for him. They’d shared a lot of personal info with each other, but that little situation still bugged her.

When Heidi showed up at the apartment door in that wheelchair, Claire’s breath stopped. No wonder Nathan had show no wife in his campaign commercials…Nathan seemed like the kind of man who would find such a thing weak. How sad, thought Claire. She’s so beautiful too.

But by mid-afternoon, she had become so talkative with the woman that she doubted Heidi would be handicapped for very long. Getting to know this sweet blue-eyed woman made Claire wonder how Nathan could fit into a family full of saints.

“Trust me,” grumbled Heidi. “If you ever met my mother-in-law, you’d see that Nathan’s not lonely.”

Currently, it was around two o’clock, and Days of Our Lives was just beginning. Claire took the commercial break as a chance to grab a snack from the fridge. Talking worked up an appetite, and the girl had already eaten a granola bar, an apple, some Lays, and a sandwich.

Right by the freezer handle was a torn picture of a large black man, grinning jovially. His smile was infectious, so much so that Claire was eager to learn who he was.

She carefully plucked the picture off of the fridge door and walked back over to Heidi.

“Hey, do you know who this is?”

Heidi peered closer at the snapshot. “I think this is Peter’s first client, Charles…something. Peter talked about him all the time, before Charles went comatose. He died about a month ago.”

“Aw,” whispered Claire. She didn’t even know the man, but she felt her heart clench at word of his passing. “He looks like he was nice.”

“That’s what Peter said,” Heidi agreed, handing the photo back to Claire, after frowning and running her finger over the rough right edge. “I wonder why it’s torn, though. I can’t imagine why Peter would damage a picture of Charles.”

Claire looked closer. “Yeah, you’re right. Come to think of it, I saw him put it on the freezer a couple nights ago.”

She approached a better light and inspected the picture. “There’s someone’s arm wrapped around Charles’s shoulders, but they were cut out. It looks like a woman; there are a lot of bangles on the wrist.”

Heidi shrugged. “I guess you can ask him when he comes home.”

Claire smiled tightly, heading back into the kitchen to replace the picture in its rightful spot. She didn’t need Heidi’s wisdom or Peter’s explanations to know who had been in that photo.