Knowing that the twisted, demented mind of Sylar will no longer torment her family and loved ones should lift the weight that has settled over her heart. Watching Sylar's body burn should ease the knots that have worked their way into her shoulders and back. Listening to both of her fathers talk about creating a new Company, one with the purpose to connect and understand rather than hunt and dissect, should quiet the nagging little doubts at the back of her mind.

But it doesn’t. Peter knows this, feels it just as strongly as she does. It hurts that Peter cannot offer her the comfort and safety she so desperately seeks, cannot ease her worries and banish her fears. Peter’s safety is a promise to protect her from anything that comes her way, a heartfelt guarantee that is grounded in the intensity of his determination as much as it is in the fact that something will always be after her. The truth of it frightens Claire.

For a split second right before leaving his side, Claire meets his gaze and she sees it all there. They know this is far from over and that the black putrid smoke rising into the night sky threatens to fall around them, smothering them. They can’t explain this sense of impending doom that entraps them. The tangibility of it chokes and crackles and pops like the raging flames and splintering wood of the bonfire.

Claire does not want a confirmation that the horrors that have haunted her since that fateful Homecoming night have not ended, that something just as dark and twisted is waiting just beyond the firelight. She doesn’t want to be bogged down by the realization that the eyes of her hero, once so wide and full of dreams, are darkening and wearing in the most heartbreaking of ways. So Claire turns away because she’s tired of being scared, feeling the ghost limb of terror flex fingers over her fragile heart. It hurts too much to stand beside Peter in the knowledge that the world is still in need of saving because the cheerleader is never safe.

Her father opens his arms for her, promises that the end has come. Claire knows it’s a lie, but he is warm and comforting, telling her exactly what she wants to hear. So she’ll pretend that everything weighing heavy over her has lifted and normal life can resume. She’ll even pretend not to feel the chasm between her and Peter widen as her father pulls her closer.