WE BELIEVE THAT PETER AND CLAIRE SHOULD GET A CHANCE

 “Save the cheerleader, save the world.”
If only he had known then how much significance that statement would have.

When she bumps into him he feels this odd surge or electricity and familiarity. He shakes it off, smiling apologetically as he helps her gather her stuff. She’s pretty, he notes, with her soft golden curls and her sad little smile, and the insecurity she shows when he talks to her makes him wish that he wasn’t here to save a cheerleader’s life. He just wants to make the lost look in her eyes disappear. When he sees her running towards him covered in blood he’s afraid he’s too late, and then he notices the uniform and the expression on her face. He realizes that she’s the girl from the painting, and he grips her arm and steers her away from the approaching shadow. Together they run up the stadium stairs. As he tosses himself and her would-be killer off the edge of the building he only hopes that she’s managed to get to safety. He wakes up and his first thought is I was dead, and then he sees her standing over him with an expression of half-shock, half-relief, and he figures that he should just be grateful he’s alive at all. He doesn’t know where the other man has run off to, but she’s safe and that’s all that matters. “What’s your name?” she asks breathlessly and he answers ‘Peter.’ She smiles and reveals, “I’m Claire.” Claire. The name rings in his head, and he knows he isn’t going to forget it anytime soon.

When the words the cheerleader’s dead float through his mind he feels a sudden, griping panic seizing his heart. Dead? Claire’s dead? No, that’s not possible--it can’t be possible. He saved her. She’s alive, they must have it wrong. When she shows up at his cell later that day he feels the fear lift instantly, and he wants to reach out and touch her, make sure she’s real, but her father’s watching and Peter’s sure that he won’t appreciate a near stranger touching his daughter. “You’re totally my hero,” she tells him and he wonders if she realizes that she’s saved him, too. He dreams a lot, the same dream over and over again, and though he’s sure he knows what it means he doesn’t know why she’s running, running, running away. Running away from him. But, really, he would run from himself too. It just hurts every time she does. When Claude throws him off the side of the building he’s scared--no, not for his life, he’s died before (it’s no big deal, she said; maybe she was right). He’s scared that he’ll never be able to see her again to tell her goodbye.

When he really does die he thinks that it’s the end, that he’ll never see Claire or his family again. And then he’s awake and she’s leaning over him with a tear-streaked face and a bloodied glass shard in her hand.

“You saved my life,” he breath as he tries to sit up, and another tear rolls down her cheek. “I guess we’re even now,” she murmurs and as he wipes her tear away he doesn’t correct her by saying that she’s saved him more than she even realizes.

The revelation that she’s his niece both hurts and excites him at the same time, but Peter’s sure she’s meant to be here. It’s destiny, fate--whatever you want to call it--and he doesn’t care what his mother or his brother believe. He knows what is real and what has to be done. His dreams tell him she’s supposed to stay in New York and not go to France. And so that’s what she’s going to do. “My destiny is not to shoot you. The universe cannot be that lame.” He knows he’s asking a lot of her, and he can see the pain of it etched on her face behind the incredulity but he’s sure this is what she has to do if it comes down to it. “You’re the only one who can get close enough to stop me" he begs, and though her eyes still show she’s not happy with the idea she takes the gun and hides it. He really hopes, for her sake, that she won’t have to use it. She’s crying again, and it pains him. He hates it when she cries. “When I met you I finally felt like I was a part of something,” she admits quietly as if she’s embarrassed to say it but those words makes his heart thump irregularly in his chest as he brushes her tears away, his hand lingering. “That’s funny,” he murmurs, smiling gently. “I felt the same thing when I met you.” The police grab Ted before he can do anything to help him, but there’s no way he’s going to let the same thing happen to Claire. He grips her firmly, hoping with all his heart that Claude’s ability can carry over to others. The two of them literally disappear into the crowd, and Peter tries to ignore the tingling sensation spreading over his skin as she clutches desperately to his arm. As he pulls the car up and she sees Nathan he knows he’s made a mistake. Her gaze is fixed on him, her expression that of betrayal, as she thinks I trusted you. He tries not to let the hurt show as he thinks to himself, You really think I’d betray you? He slowly gets out to talk to Nathan, and when he glances back and sees Claire’s not in the car he can’t even pretend that he’s not scared. “Claire!?” He runs off before your brother can get another word in.

Maybe Claire is right not to trust Nathan.
Sylar’s dead, but his hands are the ones that are glowing. His body feels hot and he knows he’s losing control, so he throws his desperate gaze towards Claire who already has the gun pulled and aimed. “Please tell me there’s another way,” she pleads with him, and he wants to tell her there is, that it doesn’t have to be this way, but there’s no other option. Her hand is shaking as the tears spill out of her eyes, and he hates that it’s because of him that she’s crying.
When Nathan swoops down in front of her he’s never felt more relieved. Right before the two of them disappear into the sky his eyes meet hers and he can see the apology in them: You were right about him. He’s dreaming of a girl on the phone, her voice distant and sad as she says, “I miss him too, you know.” He doesn’t know who she is but she feels so familiar to him, and somehow he has the sinking suspicion that the him she’s missing is... well, he doesn’t know his own name, but... He sputters awake when he’s suddenly drenched in ice-cold water and he instantly remembers where he is. He can’t help but feel that the dream seemed too real to simply be his imagination. The first thing he remembers when he regains his memory is the name Claire, and his heart thumps in his chest as he wonders how he could have ever forgotten about her. (But, really, he never truly did, did he?)
He wants to visit her right away but then he remembers his promise to Adam. Claire will still be waiting for him after he destroys the virus, he figures.
Right now he has to save the world.

“I always loved you,” she tells him and somehow, despite the cold edge to her voice, he knows it’s the truth. As he freezes time and takes her gun he leans in close, thinking the words clearly in his own head in the hopes that she will be able to hear them when he disappears. He never knows if she does. She must have seen the shooting on the news Peter figures as he answers his cell and hears her. He clenches his jaw as he listens to her voice--the voice of the wonderful teenager he has missed so terribly over the years as she’s slowly disappeared. Or maybe he’s the one that was doing the disappearing. It’s hard to tell anymore. But he knows he can’t talk to her, not now. So many things could happen. So he gives a curt goodbye and hangs up. He hopes she can forgive him later. His mother’s words are ringing through his ears as he flies as fast as he can towards where he knows Claire will be. He scoops her up in his arms just before the train hits, and they tumble in the grass together before he rolls to his feet, approaching her with a mix of fury and worry. The butterfly effect is forgotten. “What were you doing?!” He demands and she’s looking at him with a pained anger. “What did it look like? Trying to get hit by a train!” She starts to sob and he draws her to him, wondering just what he did that caused this to happen.

He sees himself shot down in an alley, and he’s not healing. Why isn’t he healing? He dares to look up then and, seeing Claire standing there with a smoking gun firmly in her grip, all his breath leaves his body. “Claire?!” He breathes out in shock but as she takes aim at him he decides not to stick around to find out just why this dark-haired replica of his niece shot him down. She’s cutting into him for something he knows he didn’t do and he’s not healing. She’s smirking down at him with a cold gaze and Peter wonders just what his future self has done to make Claire hate him so much. He’s starting to realize why why it is so imperative for him to change this future. Any world that transforms Claire into a killer is not a world worth having. Peter hits the ground with a whompf, and he has no idea how he’s still alive. But she’s there touching him gingerly around his wounds, and even though he doesn’t have his powers anymore he swears that the pain dulls. She leads him away from Pinehearst, and he leans heavily against her. She really is his hero too.
He tries to ignore the feeling of his heart attempting to burst out of his chest as she dabs him gently with the cloth. He turns his gaze away as he remembers the feel of the scalpel biting into his skin.

 He thinks that everything is going to go back to normal. It’s been months since his father was killed (again), and though his brother has been stirring up rumors he’s still managed to get a steady job as a paramedic. And then Claire calls. He thinks that it’s just one of their regular chats, that maybe she just wants to tell her about the latest college she’s looking into (she’s been calling him at least once a day), but when she speaks the words “we have to stop them” he realizes that he should’ve known better. Nothing can ever be normal again. It’s not the world he has to save this time. It’s himself--it’s her. It’s all of them. He’s drowsy when he wakes up but one look at her in an orange jumpsuit is all it takes for him to remember what’s happening. Bastard, he thinks as he remembers how easily Nathan tricked him. She’s looking at him with determined eyes as he breaks out of the shackles and Peter knows that she wants to do something, anything, to help. She wants to be a hero (it’s silly, he thinks, that she still doesn’t realize how much she already is one). “Wake everybody up,” he tells her gently but firmly, and she’s instantly removing the other prisoners’ masks. He makes a note in his mind to tell her later that she might have just saved all of their lives. He finds her a few minutes after the plane crash when everything is in complete disarray and she throws herself at him in relief. He knows not everyone made it out of the crash alive. “We have to go,” he murmurs into her hair softly and she nods, once weakly but then again more firmly, and the two of them run together, away from the crash and closer to freedom.

“My father, your brother,” she’s hissing out in frustration, and the significance behind her words isn’t lost on him. He wonders, though, if it was lost on her. When he’s in Costa Verde he wants to visit her, wants to let her know he’s okay and quell his own fears by finding out that she’s okay too. But he knows it’s not a good idea; if he knows Nathan as well as he thinks than she probably has agents watching her night and day. He can’t put her in that kind of danger. Plus, they’re here to kidnap her father. He may have betrayed them all but he knows Claire still loves Noah with all her heart. That news would only hurt her. So he watches her from a distance just to make sure she’s all right. He’s furious to see his brother arriving with Claire. He’s the one that’s supposed to save her, not Nathan. It’s what they do. They save each other. But, really, wanting her all to himself is selfish, isn’t it? “Peter,” her voice drains the tension out of his shoulders and he grips her arms gently as soon as she’s close enough to touch. ‘Hi,’ he mouths, a ghost of a smile touching his lips, and she smiles gently back. “Save the cheerleader, save the world.”
The world might always be in peril, but his world is saved so long as she is.