[Heroes/The Godfather] Redemption (Peter/Claire, Nathan/Peter, NC-17) - {Part One}
Title: Redemption
Fandom: Heroes/The Godfather
Art: Stunningly wonderful accompanying art by eryslash (spoilery for the fic; the works are linked individually in the text but can be found all together HERE.)
Pairing: Peter/Claire, Nathan/Peter (plus minor mentions of Peter/OCs)
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 10,880 (W)
Warning: Incest, underage, general violence.
Spoilers: None for Heroes (apart from some quotes you have to know the series to catch); many for The Godfather I.
Thanks to: snopes_faith, the best beta in the Net who doesn't get a title this time but a lot of random snuggly love, just because she doesn't receive as much as she deserves.
Notes: Written for the 2008 edition of heroes_bigboom. I've been happy and proud to participate. Thanks to the mods for organizing it!
More notes: This fic is a more-or-less official sequel to my fic Godblessed. They can be read independently, although I think "Redemption" makes much more sense read as a sequel than a stand alone.
Summary: May 1947. After two years, Peter Petrelli's back home from Sicily, but something's changed. Now there's Claire, Nathan's long-lost daughter that Angela decided to reunite to the family. Claire's not happy to be there; Peter's happy she is. Nathan has to deal with both.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
"We’re Petrellis, Ma.
None of us deserve to be saved."
New York City, May 1947
She’s a white and pink porcelain doll, a plain of smooth, soft flesh like an uncreased pillow. She’s got a round and soft face like a little girl and a small, pointed chin; a mouth that looks like a heart, or a flower, and when she laughs it really looks like a blooming bud, or a heart that’s being broken.
She adores you. Her eyes follow you, caress you, and when she thinks you won’t notice, they move down and undress you until you’re naked in front of her, covered just by the impalpable veil of her lids. When you turn around, you hear her hair leaf around her cheeks, kiss her neck, get caught in her mouth. Her distinctive noise is a soft rustle of thighs brushing under her skirt, and a breath too loud, held back in her throat. You barely watch her from her neck down, because it’s impolite and because that’s not the point that intrigues and tortures you. You smile to her after saying something she’ll like, and look elsewhere while she follows the crooked curve of your mouth, fascinated, and the little heart is broken again into a chuckle.
She’s one of those women you have to steal the virginity from their eyes.
+
About her mother you just know she was American, blond, and a slut. She had all that what’s required for Nathan to like her; if her mouth was half as beautiful as her daughter’s, you would’ve liked her too. She died in a fire fourteen years ago, and that’s all you need to know.
She was raised in Texas, until your mother decided the family blood had to come back to the family, and sent somebody to pick her up like a parcel from the post office. When she arrived home, you were somewhere in Europe, giving the morphine to the dying soldiers.
At first, you didn’t even notice her. There had been Linderman before, then Sicily; you came back from the Old World with your skin burnt by the sun and a curious accent to your English, and all you could think about was Nathan. Nathan Nathan Nathan. You had him bring you to the same, filthy motels he used to when you were sixteen and fuck you against the wall, or wherever was the whim of the moment. It was an obsession, to have him on you at every hour and never be able to, not the way you wanted. It had never been like this.
You think you noticed her for the first time one late night you came back home with Nathan, your hair hardly kept in place by the grease and your blood still roaring in your ears. There wasn’t one muscle in your body that didn’t hurt, and you were happy.
The drawing room was dark, apart from a weak lamp on the little table next to the couch. She was curled up against the armrest, her hair spread on her face; in her slumber, her skirt had climbed her legs and uncovered a little hem of white lace. It was the most beautiful thigh you’d ever seen, with the lace’s marks impressed on her skin, near the point where the flesh creased and rounded and disappeared under the fabric.
You took off your jacket that smelled like smoke and Nathan, then draped it over her body, making yourself sure it covered everything that needed coverage. Then you turned off the lamp and went to bed.
The day after, she thanked you. It was then that you found out there was at least one Petrelli that the blush suited, that made them look more attractive rather than ridiculous, and it didn’t matter it was a woman - your mother never blushed. It was then that you found out she had Nathan’s white and straight teeth and his very smile, but more sincere.
+
Claire. Her name bumps against your teeth like a candy and melts down slowly on your tongue.
+
She would’ve liked to be anywhere but here. She had been born in America, raised like an American, and her adoptive father had grown her leaving her free to do whatever she wanted. Now she had suddenly become an Italian female, but just half Italian blood wasn’t enough for her to get accustomed. (Bennet, the Texan man, was a former Linderman’s caporegime. The adoption had been arranged right after the fire, before the friendship between Linderman and your father deteriorated so badly. He’s not welcome in your house, but Nathan let him and his wife see Claire a couple of times, under surveillance. You think he’s a good man, but he’s not Italian.)
That morning you saw in her eyes what once Nathan must’ve seen in yours, rage and frustration and not even being allowed to raise your voice when people pretended not to see you.
“He... Your brother, I mean.” She never calls him “my father”. “What’s he like?”
“He loves you,” you answered, avoiding the question. All your life you’ve kept wondering what your brother’s like. “He loves you very much.”
“Yes,” she said, resting her cheek on her arms crossed upon the table. “Sure.”
“I’m serious.”
“Look, it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t care about me. I’m not a child anymore.”
She’s a woman, you know. You can see it.
“It’s not like that. It’s just... it’s difficult, for him. He believed you had died in the fire.”
She raises her face, surprised, and you’ve got the distinct impression you said too much. “Really?”
You nod. You’ve got vague memories of Nathan in that period; he was unreachable, his bad mood preceding him everywhere. There was your uncle to keep you company.
“Give him some time, okay? To get used to this. I know him.”
“His wife hates me,” Claire mutters.
“Heidi doesn’t hate you. She thinks Nathan hid you from her all this time.”
“Do you always behave like this?” she replies, getting animated. “You hide things from each other, nobody can ask questions, nobody knows anything. Do you always behave like this?”
You smile lightly, stroking her cheekbone with the back of your fingers. “Always.” And for some reason this makes her laugh, even if there’s nothing to laugh about.
+
Nathan is “he”, your mother is “Mrs. Petrelli”, Heidi “his wife”, Simon and Monty “the kids”. Only you are just Peter. To call you “uncle” would be ridiculous, and you think it would make you feel strange.
Whenever you have a chance, you take her out of the house. When you came back from Sicily, Nathan bought you a car, a 1937 Packard Darrin almost identical to the one that you once begged him to let you try and that you drove into a pole. (Now you can drive. You practiced in Sicily, in the middle of nothing.) You haven’t got much to do, the family business works fine without your help, and your flat looks like such a sad place now your father isn’t there to despise it anymore. When you ask her out, Claire regains her colour immediately and stops looking like a grey little ghost hanging depressed between the drawing room and the kitchen. That house, she hates it.
You open the car door for her and call her “Miss” and press the chauffeur’s hat on your forehead, and Claire laughs for you, amused. She loves when you come and pick her up from school and her classmates follow your car with their eyes, white with envy, until you disappear at the end of the street. When she sits in your car and you close her door diligently, Claire smiles through the window with the expression of a puppy just released from its cage.
You tell her about Europe, your division, your comrades; about that time you thought coming back home an arm or a leg short wouldn’t be the worst that might happen. You don’t skip the grimmest details; you carry on, knowing it’s not so easy to scary her. You don’t know what you’re supposed to talk about with a sixteen year old girl. Claire looks at you, eager for your stories, and doesn’t even bat her eyelids.
Claire doesn’t think enlisting in the Army was a cock-up. Claire doesn’t think you abandoned your family, doesn’t think you were a coward to run from them. Even if you didn’t drop bombs or shoot at anyone, Claire thinks you’ve been a hero.
You think you might want to marry a girl like this.
“I’m too young to marry,” she answers, chuckling, thinking you’re joking, and it’s like a deja-vu feeling and not really pleasant. You must have said that to your mother too, that you wanted to marry her. She answered she was too old.
“I can wait,” you reply, calmly.
Her laughter fades into an uncertain, incredulous smile. There is still that omnipresent spark of adoration deep in her eyes, but it trembles a bit, like a little flame in the wind.
“And you’re my uncle, too,” she points out in a low voice.
Sometimes you wonder why people linger so much on the details.
“Just kidding,” you mutter, kissing her forehead the way Nathan did when a bad dream scared the hell out of you. And it impresses you to think you’re doing the same with Claire. All things considered, you might be her bad dream.
+
At dinner there’s still the same silence that when you were a boy made it impossible for you to raise your eyes from your plate; the imperceptible noise of the family’s mastication and the unhappy tapping of five fingers on the table cloth. Your mother makes that little throat noise that sounds like a cough and Claire stops it, like you did, hiding her hand under the table. You smile to her between a water bottle and a wine one and roll your eyes sympathetically.
“What‘s the family’s business about?” she asks suddenly, talking to everybody and no one, and the silence coagulates around you as cold as if the dining room had turned into a basement.
It’s your fault. You knew your answer (“olive oil importation”) hadn’t convinced her. You should’ve invented something better.
“Olive oil importation,” Nathan answers, looking up. Calm, peaceful, totally self-controlled. After all, it’s not even a lie.
“Just that?” Claire insists, tilting her head to study Nathan over Heidi’s profile sitting between them.
“Claire,” starts your mother, gently.
“Naturally,” Nathan replies.
“Why do you have two bodyguards?”
“Claire, honey. We don’t talk business at the table,” your mother articulates, in a sharp voice.
A wrinkle of stubbornness rises between Claire’s eyebrows, but it gets smoothed out almost immediately. “Right,” she says, surprising you. You allow yourself to relax; maybe the worst has been avoided. In the renewed silence, Heidi orders Simon to finish his dinner.
“I’d like to see my family.” When your mother glowers at her, Claire comments in a peaceful tone: “It’s not business”.
“This is your family,” says Angela Petrelli.
“I don’t think so, no,” replies Claire, chillingly.
You sigh uneasily, spying on Nathan’s expression. “They’ll come and see you next month,” he says.
“My father told me I could go to Odessa around the end of this month.”
“It seems obvious Mr. Bennet isn’t well informed,” your mother points out.
Everything inside you shouts Claire, stop it, but your lips don’t move. Will you let her crash against the wall, like Nathan did with you and your father? Claire’s eyes rise to you, desperate and raging, looking for help.
“I could go with her,” you try, looking at Nathan.
He looks surprised but just for a moment, and you vaguely wonder if he doesn’t already know everything, even the things that didn’t happen yet.
“Claire’s got school,” Nathan replies, calmly.
“She won’t fail the year for missing a couple of days.”
“Doesn’t matter. I don’t want her to.”
“The family’s more important,” you retort, and you don’t notice but you’ve just used one of your father’s favourite sentences.
The silence falls upon you for the third time. Nathan glares you in that way that once frightened and aroused you at the same time, and now just shows how little his personality can still dominate yours.
“The answer is no.”
“Dad respected the others’ families.”
Nathan looks at you with a sarcastic grin, not at all impressed. “You don’t really think mentioning Dad is enough to make me change my mind, do you?”
You clench your jaw, vexed. “The truth is, he would’ve said that I’m right. That Claire is.”
“The truth is, you haven’t got the slightest idea of what Dad thought.”
You step out of the dining room pale with humiliation.
+
When you enter in her room it’s five-thirty in the morning. The curtains are partly shut and the room is filled with a sweetish smell of stuffy air and woman. Claire is wrapped up in the bedsheets, hugging her pillow with a bare arm that emerges from her nightgown’s thin sleeve.
You call her in a soft voice, shaking her shoulder gently. She slowly opens her eyes and takes some seconds to focus on you, then sits up, confused.
“I’ve got the flight tickets,” you tell her, hastily pulling up her sleeve that fell from her shoulder and uncovered half her breast.
“You...” she starts, opening her eyes wide. “Does he know?”
“No,” you answer, and it makes you smile like a thief to an accomplice. “Get dressed. Take just a little bag. You’ve got what you need at home, don’t you? I’ll be waiting downst-”
The word ends truncated by Claire’s hug, by the soft but decisive pressure of her breasts against your shirt. “Thanks, Peter, God, thank you so much.” Her voice warms your ear. You hesitate for a moment, then lean your hands on her back and kiss her temple.
“I’ll be waiting downstairs. Don’t take too long.”
Claire nods, emerging from the crumpled nest of bedsheets. She’s got her red cheeks, her big eyes sparkling. The sleeve falls again on her round, full breast, pointed under the light fabric of her nightgown. You watch it and watch her and Claire smiles again, looking like she didn’t notice. For a moment, before you leave the room, it seems to you that the joy made her euphoric and that in this moment you could ask her anything and she wouldn’t say no. Then sense comes back to you and you step out in the hallway, closing the door carefully behind your back.
You don’t know what’s going to happen in Texas. You don’t even know where you got this idea from. (It’s the most stupid and brave thing you’ve arranged since you blew Daniel Linderman’s head off.) But you know what Nathan’s going to say, and the thought prints a smug smile on your mouth. You think you’ll make him a phonecall from Odessa, or maybe you’ll send him a telegram; while you walk down the stairs you’re already composing the sentence in your mind and you turn it up and down between your teeth with satisfaction.
There’ll be “right” in it, and “prison”, and you’ll specify it was your idea. You think Claire will find it funny.
She meets you in the hall, wearing a yellow trench coat and a white hat and a bulging bag you quickly take from her hand. She looks back, like she fears somebody might appear at the summit of the stairs, then she closes her arms around your neck and presses her mouth on your cheek. You smile to her ear, forbidding your hand from moving down over her waistline, lifting her coat and skirt and finding out if she wore those white lace panties again.
You offer her your hand, fascinated by the way her tiny fingers disappear between yours, and in a minute you’re sitting in the Packard Darrin and the mansion is receding fast behind your back.
It’s just past six, and the airport is still almost deserted. You take your place in line; your hand is always on Claire’s back and she smiles with her sparkling eyes - she’s kept smiling for all the time - talking about Odessa, about her father, about her mother’s dog that’s got a very unlikely name. She looks like a child, with the hat askew on her forehead.
Two men step close to you. One of them, dark-haired, in his thirties, with a cigarette hanging flabby from his lips, touches the brim of his hat with three fingers and gives you an eloquent look, respectful but firm.
“We’ve got a flight to catch,” you object, uselessly, trying to give a shade of authority to your voice. You close your fingers around Claire’s hip, and she steps closer.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Peter,” the man answers, and he looks sincere. He’s one of the old ones, one of those your family hired before you left. You usually distinguish them because the old ones really respect you, they don’t just do it to be polite. One or two of them wished you good luck before you went to kill Linderman, with a look like comrades before the assault. “Let’s not make a scene, Mr. Petrelli,” the man continues, looking at Claire, “in front of the signorina.”
You close your eyes for a moment. You’re not one to be humiliated so easily, but this time is too much - it’s really too much to accept that Nathan had this done to you in front of her. Your hand slips from her hip, closing in a fist. If he were here, you’d break all the teeth in that smug smile of his.
You move from the middle of the queue. “Bring her home. I’m coming in a while,” you start, but Claire’s fingers grip your hand desperately, opening your clenched fist, and your anger evaporates so quickly when you see she’s scared, she doesn’t understand, and you remember this is not the world she’s grown up in. “It’s alright,” you murmur, stroking her cheek. “The flight’s delayed. Just delayed. Promised.”
You pass your arm around her shoulders while you walk out of the airport. The second man, a chubby guy with a pair of thick and sweaty sideburns, carries Claire’s bag. With an effort of imagination, you could think they’re your escort, sent to accompany you back home at your return from Texas. At home Nathan would wait for the two of you; he would be angry, but conscious he can’t prevent you from doing what you want. You would have Claire’s gratitude, and maybe some more of those exclusive smiles you like so much.
Claire’s lips are tightened in a line. Her hip rubs against yours while you walk.
+
“Now tell me why you had to humiliate me in front of her.”
Nathan doesn’t even look up from his papers. “You did it by yourself. I just sent the guys to take Claire to school.” A short pause. “You’d better have taken the flight. Don’t think I’ll repay your ticket.”
“You already knew, didn’t you? You had foreseen it. For Christ’s sake, Nathan, did you place your guys to spy on me even in the fucking bathroom?”
“Did you ever notice how predictable you are, Peter?” he replies, in a bored tone.
“Fuck you, Nathan. The age is turning you into an idiot. You don’t understand a thing anymore.”
“While you’re always still sixteen.”
“Because I was so happy to be sixteen!”
You didn’t really want to say it in that tone, but it just escaped from your mouth. He raises his eyes, slowly, and for the first time something dangerous passes in them. It’s indecipherable, but it’s there.
“You’re killing her. You and Ma. Look at her next time you...”
“She’s a Petrelli.” It sounds like pride vibrating in his voice, or maybe it’s just annoyance. “She’s tough.”
Part 2
Fandom: Heroes/The Godfather
Art: Stunningly wonderful accompanying art by eryslash (spoilery for the fic; the works are linked individually in the text but can be found all together HERE.)
Pairing: Peter/Claire, Nathan/Peter (plus minor mentions of Peter/OCs)
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 10,880 (W)
Warning: Incest, underage, general violence.
Spoilers: None for Heroes (apart from some quotes you have to know the series to catch); many for The Godfather I.
Thanks to: snopes_faith, the best beta in the Net who doesn't get a title this time but a lot of random snuggly love, just because she doesn't receive as much as she deserves.
Notes: Written for the 2008 edition of heroes_bigboom. I've been happy and proud to participate. Thanks to the mods for organizing it!
More notes: This fic is a more-or-less official sequel to my fic Godblessed. They can be read independently, although I think "Redemption" makes much more sense read as a sequel than a stand alone.
Summary: May 1947. After two years, Peter Petrelli's back home from Sicily, but something's changed. Now there's Claire, Nathan's long-lost daughter that Angela decided to reunite to the family. Claire's not happy to be there; Peter's happy she is. Nathan has to deal with both.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
"We’re Petrellis, Ma.
None of us deserve to be saved."
New York City, May 1947
She’s a white and pink porcelain doll, a plain of smooth, soft flesh like an uncreased pillow. She’s got a round and soft face like a little girl and a small, pointed chin; a mouth that looks like a heart, or a flower, and when she laughs it really looks like a blooming bud, or a heart that’s being broken.
She adores you. Her eyes follow you, caress you, and when she thinks you won’t notice, they move down and undress you until you’re naked in front of her, covered just by the impalpable veil of her lids. When you turn around, you hear her hair leaf around her cheeks, kiss her neck, get caught in her mouth. Her distinctive noise is a soft rustle of thighs brushing under her skirt, and a breath too loud, held back in her throat. You barely watch her from her neck down, because it’s impolite and because that’s not the point that intrigues and tortures you. You smile to her after saying something she’ll like, and look elsewhere while she follows the crooked curve of your mouth, fascinated, and the little heart is broken again into a chuckle.
She’s one of those women you have to steal the virginity from their eyes.
+
About her mother you just know she was American, blond, and a slut. She had all that what’s required for Nathan to like her; if her mouth was half as beautiful as her daughter’s, you would’ve liked her too. She died in a fire fourteen years ago, and that’s all you need to know.
She was raised in Texas, until your mother decided the family blood had to come back to the family, and sent somebody to pick her up like a parcel from the post office. When she arrived home, you were somewhere in Europe, giving the morphine to the dying soldiers.
At first, you didn’t even notice her. There had been Linderman before, then Sicily; you came back from the Old World with your skin burnt by the sun and a curious accent to your English, and all you could think about was Nathan. Nathan Nathan Nathan. You had him bring you to the same, filthy motels he used to when you were sixteen and fuck you against the wall, or wherever was the whim of the moment. It was an obsession, to have him on you at every hour and never be able to, not the way you wanted. It had never been like this.
You think you noticed her for the first time one late night you came back home with Nathan, your hair hardly kept in place by the grease and your blood still roaring in your ears. There wasn’t one muscle in your body that didn’t hurt, and you were happy.
The drawing room was dark, apart from a weak lamp on the little table next to the couch. She was curled up against the armrest, her hair spread on her face; in her slumber, her skirt had climbed her legs and uncovered a little hem of white lace. It was the most beautiful thigh you’d ever seen, with the lace’s marks impressed on her skin, near the point where the flesh creased and rounded and disappeared under the fabric.
You took off your jacket that smelled like smoke and Nathan, then draped it over her body, making yourself sure it covered everything that needed coverage. Then you turned off the lamp and went to bed.
The day after, she thanked you. It was then that you found out there was at least one Petrelli that the blush suited, that made them look more attractive rather than ridiculous, and it didn’t matter it was a woman - your mother never blushed. It was then that you found out she had Nathan’s white and straight teeth and his very smile, but more sincere.
+
Claire. Her name bumps against your teeth like a candy and melts down slowly on your tongue.
+
She would’ve liked to be anywhere but here. She had been born in America, raised like an American, and her adoptive father had grown her leaving her free to do whatever she wanted. Now she had suddenly become an Italian female, but just half Italian blood wasn’t enough for her to get accustomed. (Bennet, the Texan man, was a former Linderman’s caporegime. The adoption had been arranged right after the fire, before the friendship between Linderman and your father deteriorated so badly. He’s not welcome in your house, but Nathan let him and his wife see Claire a couple of times, under surveillance. You think he’s a good man, but he’s not Italian.)
That morning you saw in her eyes what once Nathan must’ve seen in yours, rage and frustration and not even being allowed to raise your voice when people pretended not to see you.
“He... Your brother, I mean.” She never calls him “my father”. “What’s he like?”
“He loves you,” you answered, avoiding the question. All your life you’ve kept wondering what your brother’s like. “He loves you very much.”
“Yes,” she said, resting her cheek on her arms crossed upon the table. “Sure.”
“I’m serious.”
“Look, it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t care about me. I’m not a child anymore.”
She’s a woman, you know. You can see it.
“It’s not like that. It’s just... it’s difficult, for him. He believed you had died in the fire.”
She raises her face, surprised, and you’ve got the distinct impression you said too much. “Really?”
You nod. You’ve got vague memories of Nathan in that period; he was unreachable, his bad mood preceding him everywhere. There was your uncle to keep you company.
“Give him some time, okay? To get used to this. I know him.”
“His wife hates me,” Claire mutters.
“Heidi doesn’t hate you. She thinks Nathan hid you from her all this time.”
“Do you always behave like this?” she replies, getting animated. “You hide things from each other, nobody can ask questions, nobody knows anything. Do you always behave like this?”
You smile lightly, stroking her cheekbone with the back of your fingers. “Always.” And for some reason this makes her laugh, even if there’s nothing to laugh about.
+
Nathan is “he”, your mother is “Mrs. Petrelli”, Heidi “his wife”, Simon and Monty “the kids”. Only you are just Peter. To call you “uncle” would be ridiculous, and you think it would make you feel strange.
Whenever you have a chance, you take her out of the house. When you came back from Sicily, Nathan bought you a car, a 1937 Packard Darrin almost identical to the one that you once begged him to let you try and that you drove into a pole. (Now you can drive. You practiced in Sicily, in the middle of nothing.) You haven’t got much to do, the family business works fine without your help, and your flat looks like such a sad place now your father isn’t there to despise it anymore. When you ask her out, Claire regains her colour immediately and stops looking like a grey little ghost hanging depressed between the drawing room and the kitchen. That house, she hates it.
You open the car door for her and call her “Miss” and press the chauffeur’s hat on your forehead, and Claire laughs for you, amused. She loves when you come and pick her up from school and her classmates follow your car with their eyes, white with envy, until you disappear at the end of the street. When she sits in your car and you close her door diligently, Claire smiles through the window with the expression of a puppy just released from its cage.
You tell her about Europe, your division, your comrades; about that time you thought coming back home an arm or a leg short wouldn’t be the worst that might happen. You don’t skip the grimmest details; you carry on, knowing it’s not so easy to scary her. You don’t know what you’re supposed to talk about with a sixteen year old girl. Claire looks at you, eager for your stories, and doesn’t even bat her eyelids.
Claire doesn’t think enlisting in the Army was a cock-up. Claire doesn’t think you abandoned your family, doesn’t think you were a coward to run from them. Even if you didn’t drop bombs or shoot at anyone, Claire thinks you’ve been a hero.
You think you might want to marry a girl like this.
“I’m too young to marry,” she answers, chuckling, thinking you’re joking, and it’s like a deja-vu feeling and not really pleasant. You must have said that to your mother too, that you wanted to marry her. She answered she was too old.
“I can wait,” you reply, calmly.
Her laughter fades into an uncertain, incredulous smile. There is still that omnipresent spark of adoration deep in her eyes, but it trembles a bit, like a little flame in the wind.
“And you’re my uncle, too,” she points out in a low voice.
Sometimes you wonder why people linger so much on the details.
“Just kidding,” you mutter, kissing her forehead the way Nathan did when a bad dream scared the hell out of you. And it impresses you to think you’re doing the same with Claire. All things considered, you might be her bad dream.
+
At dinner there’s still the same silence that when you were a boy made it impossible for you to raise your eyes from your plate; the imperceptible noise of the family’s mastication and the unhappy tapping of five fingers on the table cloth. Your mother makes that little throat noise that sounds like a cough and Claire stops it, like you did, hiding her hand under the table. You smile to her between a water bottle and a wine one and roll your eyes sympathetically.
“What‘s the family’s business about?” she asks suddenly, talking to everybody and no one, and the silence coagulates around you as cold as if the dining room had turned into a basement.
It’s your fault. You knew your answer (“olive oil importation”) hadn’t convinced her. You should’ve invented something better.
“Olive oil importation,” Nathan answers, looking up. Calm, peaceful, totally self-controlled. After all, it’s not even a lie.
“Just that?” Claire insists, tilting her head to study Nathan over Heidi’s profile sitting between them.
“Claire,” starts your mother, gently.
“Naturally,” Nathan replies.
“Why do you have two bodyguards?”
“Claire, honey. We don’t talk business at the table,” your mother articulates, in a sharp voice.
A wrinkle of stubbornness rises between Claire’s eyebrows, but it gets smoothed out almost immediately. “Right,” she says, surprising you. You allow yourself to relax; maybe the worst has been avoided. In the renewed silence, Heidi orders Simon to finish his dinner.
“I’d like to see my family.” When your mother glowers at her, Claire comments in a peaceful tone: “It’s not business”.
“This is your family,” says Angela Petrelli.
“I don’t think so, no,” replies Claire, chillingly.
You sigh uneasily, spying on Nathan’s expression. “They’ll come and see you next month,” he says.
“My father told me I could go to Odessa around the end of this month.”
“It seems obvious Mr. Bennet isn’t well informed,” your mother points out.
Everything inside you shouts Claire, stop it, but your lips don’t move. Will you let her crash against the wall, like Nathan did with you and your father? Claire’s eyes rise to you, desperate and raging, looking for help.
“I could go with her,” you try, looking at Nathan.
He looks surprised but just for a moment, and you vaguely wonder if he doesn’t already know everything, even the things that didn’t happen yet.
“Claire’s got school,” Nathan replies, calmly.
“She won’t fail the year for missing a couple of days.”
“Doesn’t matter. I don’t want her to.”
“The family’s more important,” you retort, and you don’t notice but you’ve just used one of your father’s favourite sentences.
The silence falls upon you for the third time. Nathan glares you in that way that once frightened and aroused you at the same time, and now just shows how little his personality can still dominate yours.
“The answer is no.”
“Dad respected the others’ families.”
Nathan looks at you with a sarcastic grin, not at all impressed. “You don’t really think mentioning Dad is enough to make me change my mind, do you?”
You clench your jaw, vexed. “The truth is, he would’ve said that I’m right. That Claire is.”
“The truth is, you haven’t got the slightest idea of what Dad thought.”
You step out of the dining room pale with humiliation.
+
When you enter in her room it’s five-thirty in the morning. The curtains are partly shut and the room is filled with a sweetish smell of stuffy air and woman. Claire is wrapped up in the bedsheets, hugging her pillow with a bare arm that emerges from her nightgown’s thin sleeve.
You call her in a soft voice, shaking her shoulder gently. She slowly opens her eyes and takes some seconds to focus on you, then sits up, confused.
“I’ve got the flight tickets,” you tell her, hastily pulling up her sleeve that fell from her shoulder and uncovered half her breast.
“You...” she starts, opening her eyes wide. “Does he know?”
“No,” you answer, and it makes you smile like a thief to an accomplice. “Get dressed. Take just a little bag. You’ve got what you need at home, don’t you? I’ll be waiting downst-”
The word ends truncated by Claire’s hug, by the soft but decisive pressure of her breasts against your shirt. “Thanks, Peter, God, thank you so much.” Her voice warms your ear. You hesitate for a moment, then lean your hands on her back and kiss her temple.
“I’ll be waiting downstairs. Don’t take too long.”
Claire nods, emerging from the crumpled nest of bedsheets. She’s got her red cheeks, her big eyes sparkling. The sleeve falls again on her round, full breast, pointed under the light fabric of her nightgown. You watch it and watch her and Claire smiles again, looking like she didn’t notice. For a moment, before you leave the room, it seems to you that the joy made her euphoric and that in this moment you could ask her anything and she wouldn’t say no. Then sense comes back to you and you step out in the hallway, closing the door carefully behind your back.
You don’t know what’s going to happen in Texas. You don’t even know where you got this idea from. (It’s the most stupid and brave thing you’ve arranged since you blew Daniel Linderman’s head off.) But you know what Nathan’s going to say, and the thought prints a smug smile on your mouth. You think you’ll make him a phonecall from Odessa, or maybe you’ll send him a telegram; while you walk down the stairs you’re already composing the sentence in your mind and you turn it up and down between your teeth with satisfaction.
There’ll be “right” in it, and “prison”, and you’ll specify it was your idea. You think Claire will find it funny.
She meets you in the hall, wearing a yellow trench coat and a white hat and a bulging bag you quickly take from her hand. She looks back, like she fears somebody might appear at the summit of the stairs, then she closes her arms around your neck and presses her mouth on your cheek. You smile to her ear, forbidding your hand from moving down over her waistline, lifting her coat and skirt and finding out if she wore those white lace panties again.
You offer her your hand, fascinated by the way her tiny fingers disappear between yours, and in a minute you’re sitting in the Packard Darrin and the mansion is receding fast behind your back.
It’s just past six, and the airport is still almost deserted. You take your place in line; your hand is always on Claire’s back and she smiles with her sparkling eyes - she’s kept smiling for all the time - talking about Odessa, about her father, about her mother’s dog that’s got a very unlikely name. She looks like a child, with the hat askew on her forehead.
Two men step close to you. One of them, dark-haired, in his thirties, with a cigarette hanging flabby from his lips, touches the brim of his hat with three fingers and gives you an eloquent look, respectful but firm.
“We’ve got a flight to catch,” you object, uselessly, trying to give a shade of authority to your voice. You close your fingers around Claire’s hip, and she steps closer.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Peter,” the man answers, and he looks sincere. He’s one of the old ones, one of those your family hired before you left. You usually distinguish them because the old ones really respect you, they don’t just do it to be polite. One or two of them wished you good luck before you went to kill Linderman, with a look like comrades before the assault. “Let’s not make a scene, Mr. Petrelli,” the man continues, looking at Claire, “in front of the signorina.”
You close your eyes for a moment. You’re not one to be humiliated so easily, but this time is too much - it’s really too much to accept that Nathan had this done to you in front of her. Your hand slips from her hip, closing in a fist. If he were here, you’d break all the teeth in that smug smile of his.
You move from the middle of the queue. “Bring her home. I’m coming in a while,” you start, but Claire’s fingers grip your hand desperately, opening your clenched fist, and your anger evaporates so quickly when you see she’s scared, she doesn’t understand, and you remember this is not the world she’s grown up in. “It’s alright,” you murmur, stroking her cheek. “The flight’s delayed. Just delayed. Promised.”
You pass your arm around her shoulders while you walk out of the airport. The second man, a chubby guy with a pair of thick and sweaty sideburns, carries Claire’s bag. With an effort of imagination, you could think they’re your escort, sent to accompany you back home at your return from Texas. At home Nathan would wait for the two of you; he would be angry, but conscious he can’t prevent you from doing what you want. You would have Claire’s gratitude, and maybe some more of those exclusive smiles you like so much.
Claire’s lips are tightened in a line. Her hip rubs against yours while you walk.
+
“Now tell me why you had to humiliate me in front of her.”
Nathan doesn’t even look up from his papers. “You did it by yourself. I just sent the guys to take Claire to school.” A short pause. “You’d better have taken the flight. Don’t think I’ll repay your ticket.”
“You already knew, didn’t you? You had foreseen it. For Christ’s sake, Nathan, did you place your guys to spy on me even in the fucking bathroom?”
“Did you ever notice how predictable you are, Peter?” he replies, in a bored tone.
“Fuck you, Nathan. The age is turning you into an idiot. You don’t understand a thing anymore.”
“While you’re always still sixteen.”
“Because I was so happy to be sixteen!”
You didn’t really want to say it in that tone, but it just escaped from your mouth. He raises his eyes, slowly, and for the first time something dangerous passes in them. It’s indecipherable, but it’s there.
“You’re killing her. You and Ma. Look at her next time you...”
“She’s a Petrelli.” It sounds like pride vibrating in his voice, or maybe it’s just annoyance. “She’s tough.”
Part 2