Title: An Uncomfortable Conversation
Author: Elisabeth
Rating: PG
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing/Characters: Claire & Mohinder; Claire/Peter (mentioned)
Summary: Claire has an important question about her ability.
Spoilers: Future fic. Takes place roughly two years after the end if season one.
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership over these characters. I am merely borrowing them from Tim Kring et al.
Feedback: Yes please! It makes me happy and keeps me writing.
Thanks to KallieRose for the beta.
Author's Note: My attempt at answering a question that pops up a lot. Do not flame if you disagree with my ending, please.


An Uncomfortable Conversation

"Mohinder," Claire nervously asked the geneticist. "You're the expert on our abilities, right?"

Mohinder looked self-conscious, but admitted, "I suppose that you could say that. Between the notes my father left behind and my own research, I probably know more about evolved humans than most people."

"So what would happen if I have sex?" Claire asked in a rush.

Mohinder nearly knocked over the stack of files he'd been moving around. "I-I beg your pardon?"

"Please don't make me say it again," Claire begged, blushing to the roots of her blonde hair.

"D-don't you want to speak to a medical doctor about this? A gynecologist perhaps? Your mother?" he asked, stumbling away from Claire, trying to put as much distance between them as possible.

Claire shook her head. "I don't need to know about the mechanics of sex. Kinda got that part figured out. Plus, I know all about safe sex."

"Then what…?"

"It's just, I've never had sex before. Is… Will my… When I'm with someone for the first time…?"

The light finally went on in Mohinder's head and he relaxed a bit as he realized what she was asking. "You're wondering if your hymen will regenerate," he surmised.

Claire bit her bottom lip and nodded. "Um, yeah. It's just… I've heard that it hurts the first time, and I was just wondering if it's gonna be like that every time, for me."

Mohinder sat down and gestured for Claire to do the same. "Honestly, I don't have an answer regarding that. One would imagine that your theory is correct, and your body would see the tearing of the hymen as something to fix." He hated the way that Claire's face fell at that news. "But without experimentation, that is to say, following through with the act and tearing it, I have no way of proving the theory one way or another."

Claire slumped back in her chair. "I was afraid that you were going to say that."

Mohinder leaned forward. "Claire, forgive me for asking, but given the subject matter, I feel that it is within my rights…"

"You want to know who I want to have sex with since I don't have a boyfriend," Claire guessed.

"I am a rather curious," Mohinder admitted.

"How do you know that I'm not just asking because I figure that I'll have sex eventually?" Claire countered.

Mohinder looked at her pointedly.

"Okay, so there is someone," she admitted.

"Claire, you're only eighteen, there's no need to rush into anything," Mohinder pointed out. After having raised Molly for the past two years, he now understood better what it was like to be a father to a girl.

"It's not rushing," she said, blushing faintly.

"Then who? I've never seen you with a boyfriend, unless you've been hiding him away from everyone. I mean, the only man that I ever see you out with is…"

"Peter," Claire finished for him.

Mohinder paled slightly, which was no easy feat for someone with his complexion. "Claire, he's your uncle."

She shook her head. "Actually, turns out he's not."

"What are you talking about? Peter is Nathan's brother. Nathan is your father; ergo, your uncle."

"But he's not. Angela just told him the other day that he was adopted, too." Mohinder looked bewildered. "You know how I was taken from my bio-mom and given to the Bennets?" Mohinder nodded, very familiar with this story by now. "Well, kinda the same thing happened with Peter. Turns out that he was Linderman's son. Angela never said who his mom was, but knowing Linderman, she would have had some kind of special ability, too. She died giving birth to him, and Linderman wasn't in any shape to raise him alone, given his lifestyle, so he gave Peter to his good friends the Petrellis."

"Fascinating," Mohinder said. "But all this time, you've been seeing Peter, thinking the two of you were related," he pointed out.

"We couldn't help ourselves," Claire admitted. "We were attracted to each other from the moment we met, before we knew we were related. We tried so hard not to give into our feelings. We knew it was wrong. But after everything that happened at Kirby Plaza, after Peter came back to me, we couldn't deny it any more."

"I can imagine what a relief it was to learn the truth of Peter's lineage," Mohinder said.

"You have no idea," Claire brightly said. "We'd been waiting to make love. At first we were waiting until I turned eighteen. I think we were also kind of waiting for something like this to happen. Peter said he had a feeling that the Petrellis weren't his biological family and he finally confronted Angela about it."

"And now that you no longer have the legal and moral restrictions attached to your relationship, you're beginning to think about the implications of what the physical act of making love will hold for you in light of your ability."

Claire nodded. "Yeah, that's pretty much it."

Mohinder sighed. "I'm sorry, I wish that I had a better answer for you, but I don't. It's not like I have case studies on other people who can regenerate to draw on. I would like to be able to tell you that this is something that your body was built to do, and therefore it should not regenerate, but I can not be certain."

"I guess I kinda figured that's what you were going to say, but I had to ask," Claire said. She stood and prepared to leave. "Thanks for listening, Mohinder."

"Claire," he said, halting her exit, "if it's not too much to ask… if you do go through with this, could you let me know the results?" Claire blushed. "It's just that, as I said, you're the first person that I've encountered with this ability, and the more information that I have, the better we can understand the limitations of it. Then the next time a young woman with the ability to regenerate has this question come up, we can provide her with a more helpful answer."

"I understand," Claire said. "I'll let you know."

Three days later Mohinder had a message on his voicemail from a very happy sounding Claire. "It didn't regenerate."

The End

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