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Upon closer inspection, the abandoned warehouse they had appeared in was one building (of many buildings) of an old paper factory. Fitting, Claire told herself, once she discovered the fact, although she was too afraid to ask if there was some great significance to the location, or whether it was mere convenience on the part of her rescuers.
Instead she kept her distance from the three men, the ghosts from her past that had pulled her out from a fate she wasn't quite sure she wanted to think about. Her hero had saved her again, five years after the first time he'd swept into her life and kept her safe. Her hero who turned out to be her own blood, her uncle. A man so far removed from his brother - her father - that it was almost unbelievable.
The years had not been kind to Peter, and the man standing before her had lost the perpetual hope that lingered on his face when he was lost in thought. That light burned only in his eyes now, and only when she looked carefully.
And she spent a good deal of time just watching him; watching for that hope. She still wasn't quite sure this was real. She could see him, hear his voice, and feel the warmth in his arms, but she was terrified that she would wake up to discover that none of it was real. That it was an illusion. An attempt to break her soul apart in one sharp move.
She knew that he knew she was watching him, and somehow that reassured her.
Standing on the far side of the warehouse, purposely keeping her out of earshot as he spoke to Hiro - another changed man - and Ando, whom she had met only once before hearing of his death. Either the news had been unreliable, or there was something amiss. Something that they weren't ready to share with her.
Peter would tell her that it was for her own protection. And as much as she hated to be told what was good for her, she would listen.
If there was anyone who had earned her respect and trust, it was Peter.
It was hours after dark when he joined Claire at a broken table, covered in glass. She'd spent the better part of the last hour just staring at the pieces, mentally piecing them together in her head, wondering if there were enough pieces to form a whole pane.
"Just like a jigsaw puzzle, huh?"
His voice, low and hoarse, and not like she remembered, but still with the same, familiar warmth, cut through the silence easily, without disturbing the almost peaceful quality that the quiet held. She must have looked up at him with a startled look on her face, because his lips twitched up into a faint smile. He'd read her mind, and she was started by it.
"Sorry." He pulled over another chair, one of the few remaining with four legs and enough structural integrity to support his weight. "I wasn't trying to pry."
Claire shook her head, and for once she was at a loss for words. It was as if everything suddenly became real, became so clear in her mind that she could feel the weight of everything that had passed. It was unsettling, and it was upsetting, and she really did not want to cry in front of Peter. He let her struggle to find words, something to deflect the weight of his gaze off of her. She couldn't be sure how long it took, but in the end the time wasn't important.
Finally she spoke, and her voice was as low as his own. "How did you find me?"
"I've always known where you were."
The words were like a fire, that breathed warmth and feeling into her bones, solidifying her weakening supply of strength.
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the tabletop, ignoring the glass, and looked straight into her eyes. The same compassion and caring that she had seen in them the first night they had met was there, hardened by time and loss and a measure of guilt that she couldn't begin to fathom. But the qualities that had enamored her affection were still there. "I wanted to make sure you were safe."
Her mind was awash with thoughts and questions. Why he hadn't found a way to let her know?
Unconsciously she shoved her hands in her skirt pocket, and the familiar texture of worn paper brought her back to the present. The ink had faded, the edges curled up and the paper thinned, but she knew the few lines by heart. They had been her lighthouse in the first few months, the first few years after the destruction in New York, and they had been her comfort whenever she had been forced to pack up and move.
"I'm sorry that you won't get your wedding day," he told her, and her eyes damned well near welled up at that thought. Poor Andy; so sweet and kind, and caring. Though he had never known her secret, and the fact that she would never tell, she had known from the minute he asked her out that he would have kept that secret. Whatever the cost.
She didn't want to think about what she had just done to his life.
Peter shook his head. "Not your fault," he pointed out.
"You keep reading my mind."
He held out a hand, palm up, and after a long moment she slipped her smaller hand into his. Both of them gripped the other tight.
His smile was soft and sad. "Sometimes people can't always speak what they really feel. Everything gets in the way." He squeezed her hand tight, before releasing it once more. He watched her with the same intensity, but now something about it was different. "But I don't look beyond the surface," he promised, before sitting up straight in the beaten chair.
The silence stretched out between them, and it was almost comforting.
Peter was her rock; her one link to a family that had been torn into pieces and thrown to the wind. Now that he'd found her, she wasn't about to let that go. For all that she had told herself that she had moved on, that she had found a way to live a life that was a lie, she knew that she wouldn't be able to go back. Everything had changed.
"Thank you," she said.
Peter turned his head slightly, and the way the light played with the shadows on his face accentuated his scar. It was something she would ask him about. One day.
She offered him the best smile she could; her lips turned up in a slight smile that never reached her eyes, even if the sincerity did. "You saved my life."
He turned away from her, and any hope of being able to tell what he was thinking was lost to her.
"One day you'll save mine."