InsaneJournal

WHO: Claire Bennet and Noah Gray
WHAT: Noah's had enough of the anti-Sylar brigade.
WHEN: Not long after this and immediately after this.
WHERE: Room #107A
RATING: PG-13 (mild violence and language)
STATUS: complete; narrative

In most circumstances, Noah was the sort to stay calm and collected. To do otherwise tended to get people killed in the world he came from and Noah's ultimate goal in life was, for the most part, to survive. He did get angry, of course, and he certainly acted on his anger. However, he tried not to do things without thinking them through and he rarely allowed his anger to explode to the point that it bordered on rage. No, cold revenge was much more to his liking and far more satisfying as far as he was concerned.

When it came to his family though, all bets were off. In his world, there were only a small number of people he could really count on and his parents were the top two. Every Pinehearst employee he'd ever faced off against who had survived the encounter knew that, to mess with Gabriel or Elle was to mess with their son. And while he wasn't quite as dangerous as his namesake Noah Bennet had been, he was certainly someone who could hold his own. Especially when the other person had no idea what they were up against.

It was that knowledge that he was hedging his bets on as he left the apartment he was sharing with his parents and made his way to the current location of his latest target. Claire Bennet, as far as he was concerned, had crossed a line that even the Claire in his own reality didn't have the nerve to cross very often. It had taken very little to track her down, too. After all, while locating someone and catching them off guard wasn't something he did as a norm, it was a skill that he'd learned a few years back and had no problem putting to good use.

So he'd traced her PDA messages until he'd found her and was now on his way to have a not-so-nice little face to face with the woman.

Slipping into her apartment, also, wasn't overly difficult. Already his PDA was in his pocket and his gun was in his hand as he passed through the foyer and made his way to the first of the two bedrooms. The silencer was in place and, aside from taking a risk that she had a roommate who was there with her at the moment, Noah was fairly certain he had all of his bases covered. As for the roommate if one existed... well, if he had to take two people out of commission for a minute, he wasn't opposed to that either. No matter what, Claire was going to hear what he had to say and she was either going to listen or he was going to let her bleed out on the spot. The choice was ultimately going to be hers.

As he shoved open the first bedroom door, he thought briefly that luck was on his side as he'd gotten it right on his first try. For sure enough sitting there, on the bed with her PDA held tightly in her grasp, was none other than the very woman who had pissed him off to the point that he was willing to incur the wrath of the rest of his family just to deal with her on his own terms.

Without so much as batting an eye, Noah took aim and fired his gun.

A muffled grunt passed Claire's lips as the bullet hit its mark, ripping into her thigh and sending blood splattering across her bedspread, the front of her shirt, and her cheek. The PDA fell to the ground as she immediately tried to stand, naturally assuming her ability would push the bullet out by the time her foot hit the floor. "What in the he-"

Anything else she had to say was cut short as her knee buckle and she collapsed to the floor in a heap. She could still feel the blood oozing from the hole in her thigh and wriggled herself around until she was sitting with her legs in front of her and her back pressed against her bed. Wide-eyed, she stared in horror at the bullet hole and willed it to heal already. When it didn't, her gaze snapped up to the guy standing in her doorway, barely noticing the slight wave of his hand that could almost pass for a greeting.

"What did you do to me?" she demanded. Her tone was a mixture of horror, fear, and disbelief. Her stomach dropped clear to her toes and her breath caught in her throat as he shot her a very Sylar-esque expression in return, stepped into the room, and calmly shut the door behind him. The lock slid into place with an audible click that reverberated in her shell-shocked mind.

"It's time for the two of us to have a little chat," Noah replied after a moment. He turned back to face her and slid the gun back into the waistband of his jeans. "Oh, and don't worry. You'll heal soon enough. I just couldn't have you healing too fast. People listen better when they're bleeding. It's a sad, but true, fact of life." By the time he'd finished speaking he'd made his way across the room and was crouching down in front of her.

Reaching out, Noah placed a hand on each of her thighs - making sure to put a little extra pressure on the one with the wound - as he leaned a little closer and dropped his voice to a dangerous whisper. "I should probably warn you, though, if you don't hear me out, I'm going to shoot you in the one place that you won't heal from. So it's be in your best interest to listen."

With a pat on her cheek that left a palm print from her own blood, Noah stood once more and moved to a nearby chair near the desk against the far wall. Sitting down, he kept his gaze trained on her and a partial-eye on her wound. He hadn't suppressed her ability entirely, just enough to keep her from healing instantly, but if her power kicked into overdrive he wanted to be able to counter it before she could get back to her feet.

"Now," he spoke again when it became obvious she was just going to stare at him in abject horror. "Obviously, I'm here about this little issue you have with my Dad. Don't get me wrong. The two of you don't get along in my reality either, so I'm not here to ask you to start being nice to him or anything stupid like that. However, I am asking that you stop badmouthing him, in the open where he and everyone else can see it, every chance that you get."

"You're insane," was Claire's only reply, her own tone laced with disgust. "Maybe even crazier than he is."

Noah gave her a cold smile. "Probably. Especially compared to the version of him that's here. Which is my point. If you don't do what I asked, I'm going to come back and I'm not going to be nearly as nice as I'm being right now. So really, the way I see it, you can either take a chance that everyone else around you is right and the Gabriel Gray that's here isn't a serial killing psychopath, or you can keep treating him like he is and you can deal with me - the son of a man who very much used to be the very thing you so despise." Rising back to his feet, Noah gave a shrug of his shoulders. "Like I said. The choice is yours."

Whether it was the loss of blood, the fear that he actually would shoot her in the back of the head, her own survival instinct, or something he said, Claire wasn't sure. Whatever the cause, she actually did as he 'suggested' and thought about her options. And as much as she hated to admit it, she realized he was right. She couldn't say for certain that this Gabriel Gray was the murderous bastard that had tormented her for so very long. She could now say with absolute certainty, though, that his son was capable of things that no teenage boy should be capable of doing without feeling ten tons of guilt after the fact.

After a long minute and a substantial throbbing from her thigh to remind her that she still hadn't healed, Claire gave a nod of her head. Her look wasn't one of submission or even defeat as she glared daggers at him, but her tone was even and honest as she replied, "Fine. I'll stop. As long as he doesn't do anything that Sylar might do, I'll leave him alone."

Noah nodded. "Fair enough." Once again he gave that slight wave of his hand and she realized, a little too late, that the first time he'd made that gesture it was to do... whatever it was he'd done to her. Sure enough the bullet began to slide out of her flesh a heartbeat later and she knew that this time he'd restored her own ability. She still didn't move from her seated position on the floor, though, not even after the wound had already closed. She was too busy watching him as he made his way back to her bedroom door.

Claire expected him to say something before he left. Maybe some sort of ominous threat, she wasn't sure. He didn't, though. In fact, he didn't even look at her again. He just opened the door and calmly stepped out of the room. He even made sure to close the door behind him when he left.

And by the time she'd gotten to her feet, picked up her PDA, and made her way to the door as well, he was already gone.

Not quite sure what to make of the encounter, or the unexpected and wholly unwanted visitor, Claire simply sighed heavily and set the device on her dresser. Then she made her way to the bathroom intending on taking a hot shower, grabbing a bite to eat, and going to sleep. If she was lucky, she would wake up back in her own bed back in Texas to find that this had all been some bizarre nightmare brought on by bad Chinese food, severe head trauma, or maybe a mixture of both.