Day 58: Cafeteria

[gald_digger]

Anise woke up feeling lucky to be alive. She still felt a bit waterlogged, even though her skin, hair, and clothes were completely dry. During last night's adventures, she'd swallowed a lot of water, and it still felt heavy and disgusting in her stomach. Her arms and legs were tired from treading water. Lying still in her bed, she still kind of

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[autophoenix]

Claire shrugged as she disregarded her plate and settled on only drinking her drink, the very picture of nonchalance. It had been a while, hadn't it? She'd gotten used to seeing Peter practically every day, even though back home she was lucky to see him once a month with the way things had gone. Realizing it gave her a little bit of a pause.

"My dad visited yesterday," there was something quiet and denying about the way she said it. Like she wanted to be okay with it, like she wanted to believe it was really him and not some weird brainwash-y double or monster like that other Peter she'd run into. "I mean, not my dad, obviously," she admitted. "He kept … calling me Emma." At that, she laughed, like it was just a quirk of some senile relative instead of her dad really thinking she was some other person.

"I always thought I'd still be mad at him when I saw him again." In her neck and jaw, a tenseness became apparent that betrayed that it got to her a little. She wasn't mad. She just wanted her dad back -- for real. Not whatever Landel or Aguilar or any of them had done to him.

[human_sponge]

For some reason, he hadn't really expected that. Peter paused halfway to bringing his fork to his mouth and then set the utensil down, staring across the table at Claire as he tried to judge her feelings on being visited. In the end, though, it was hard to tell. Chances were that she felt the same way about the whole thing as he did.

While she didn't come right out and say it, she was implying that at this point she couldn't even manage to be angry with her father. Peter could understand that. As terrible as this place was, it had the side effect of pointing out what was really important. Grudges and arguments were hard to hold up when your loved one was completely messed up in the head. He sighed, thinking of his own family members. They were relying on him to help them, even if they didn't realize it.

"Nathan and my mom have visited me too," he replied, not remembering if he'd mentioned it to Claire before. "It's... really weird, since you can see how it's still them but..." Peter had never suspected that it was a double or some kind of ruse. It was the sort of thing you just knew deep down, wasn't it? That was always how he'd felt about it, anyway. "At this point, it's just me and you who have to make sure we get them back to normal." They would manage it somehow. Claire might just be a teenager with a freakishly fast healing rate and he might just be a nurse with a host of powers that were almost always on the fritz here, but somehow when he was with his niece he felt like he could take on the world.

[autophoenix]

"But, you can't."

She said it like she was being petulant and defensive, but there was decisiveness and determination in her gaze to back it up when she fixed her attention on him. Her lips tugged into a firm line, the tiredness wearing out of her features and finally getting replaced by the strength that she knew she'd been growing.

"I mean, you can't know it's them. Peter, a few nights ago, I ran into a perfect replica of you and I had no idea until the next day that it was anything but the truth. What if these people, who they're calling our family, aren't actually them either? What if it's just … some monster that turned into them? Or some weird science experiment like the kind they run upstairs?"

Claire was growing steadily more enthusiastic as she went on, and then she finally shook her head, sitting back a little and setting her cup down. It bothered her to a degree, that their reality was starting to seem so flimsy. It wasn't just because of the hallucinations at this point, either.

"The fact is, we can't be sure of anything in here."

[human_sponge]

For some reason, Peter hadn't expected Claire to argue with him on this.

And, in a way, it hurt. He realized what she was getting at -- they couldn't ever assume anything as fact here -- but still, he'd known it. There were certain things that Peter was willing to believe on gut instinct alone, and this was one of them. Nathan was his brother, someone he'd known since the day he was born. It wouldn't be that easy to just make some replica of him like that.

Claire might have been fooled by whatever doppelganger of him was wandering around, but that was also because she didn't know him that well when it came down to it. It'd been less than a year since they'd first met. Of course, saying any of that out loud was bound to just upset her, which wasn't Peter's aim.

"Claire, it's... my brother. My mom. I know it's them." Besides, any alternatives were just too hard for him to accept. The idea that they weren't really safe at all, that they might be chained up somewhere as lab rats being tortured -- Peter just wasn't willing to consider that possibility.

"Besides, isn't it better to know it's them? That way we know they're accessible. We know we can save them." He hadn't expected their morning chat to turn into something like this, but he couldn't just let it go either.

[autophoenix]

An argument. It was just one after another it seemed, and as much as Claire didn't want to fight, she knew she couldn't just give it up that easily either. She had to believe that it wasn't her dad. She had to believe it was just … like the hallucination or Peter's doppelganger. It was just something else to mess with her head. It couldn't be that her dad honestly thought she was some other girl. Some other daughter.

"And I knew it was you! Peter, this place has done nothing but play mind games with us, what makes you think that these 'visitations' aren't just another way to do it? They're messing with our heads and trying to distract us." From what, she didn't know. Getting out, maybe, but it wasn't as if many of them stood a chance of doing that in the first place.

A frustrated look flitted over her face and she swallowed it back, expelling a sigh. This wasn't what she wanted. Not even close. She shut her eyes for a moment to get her instinct to push her opinion further under control and when she opened them again, she was more centered and less pushy.

"I don't want to fight with you about this. Please."

[human_sponge]

It did seem like they fought more than they agreed on things these days, and Peter wondered why that was. Did they not click as much as they'd thought when they'd met that night in Odessa, or was it just the stress of this situation wearing on them both? Peter was inclined to think that it was the latter combined with the fact that they were still feeling each other out.

The worst part was that he knew that Claire had a point, and yet he wasn't willing to just give up on his side of things. He wasn't going to try and convince her of something that she didn't believe in, but...

The idea of just forgetting about his brother and his mom just wasn't an option. Even if he went along with Claire's way of thinking and thought of it as a distraction, he knew he could never go home without making sure that Nathan and Angela weren't really stuck out there thinking they were other people. The guilt would just be too much.

He was willing to drop it, though, and so he nodded to his niece. "All right, let's... not. There was something I wanted to tell you about, anyway." Peter didn't know if now was the best time for it, but it was as good a way as any to get their minds off of this argument.

"I've... come across a few other patients who can do what you can do. I don't know if it's exactly the same, but I figured you'd want to know about it." He didn't know if it would make Claire feel relieved that she wasn't the only one or threatened in some weird way, but he couldn't in good conscience keep it from her.

[autophoenix]

She'd been trying. Ever since she got here, knowing that Peter was from earlier in time than she was, she was trying. But spending a good deal of her life in Costa Verde completely ignored by him, and then having him blow her off in the way she felt like he did after Sylar attacked her …

It had left a scar. Not a visible one, maybe, but she had never been good at keeping those. And as hard as she tried not to hold it against this Peter, this good Peter who hadn't hurt or ignored her, it was nearly impossible to do so and she still found herself bickering with him. She liked to just dismiss it as him not being used to her really being able to take care of herself and do things for herself.

That comment made Claire's expression blanch entirely. Her eyes went wide and her jaw felt like it sagged open a little in surprise. She couldn't even begin to know how she felt about that. Up until this point, Peter was the only person she'd ever met who could do what she could do, and that was because she could. The idea that someone else out there was like her …

"Who?" The word came out a little shaky, her throat dry from the disbelief. As she slowly let the shock where off, she continued in a series of staccato, disbelieving utterances. "I -- How? I mean, have they been here this whole time? How did you find out?"

[human_sponge]

Claire's response turned out to be pure shock, and Peter couldn't really get more out of it than that. That was more or less what he'd been expecting, but he just hoped that deciding to tell her about this didn't end up backfiring in some way. Albedo certainly hadn't seemed interested in hiding what he was capable of, at least. The kid he'd taken care of last night was another story, but either way he didn't necessarily have to name names.

"It all kind of happened by chance," he said after a pause. "The other night, when I went up to the pharmacy with those two kids, we were attacked by a brainwashed patient. That was the night when I wasn't able to feel pain randomly." He still hadn't sorted out why that had happened, but it hadn't recurred and so he'd done his best to just let it go.

"Anyway, one of the kids got hurt, but he healed almost instantly. He acted like it was normal for him." That was probably the strangest part, how Albedo had touted around that shotgun and taken hits like it was completely normal for his age. Peter still couldn't figure out what kind of story was behind that, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Then, last night I went up to help the people who'd been taken for experiments. The kid we found came out covered in blood, but he didn't have a single wound that I could see. I'm not sure about that one, but it definitely seems weird." It was possible that whatever he'd been put through in that room had resulted in being able to heal, although Peter didn't know why the institute would do anything helpful like that. You never knew with this place, though.

[autophoenix]

Acting like it was normal for him. She almost let the ghost of a smile hit her lips at that. She kinda had to wonder if that's how the other Peter had looked at it when he'd seen her do it. If it was that weird to see someone just walking off mortal wounds like it was nothing -- because, to her, after everything she'd gone through in the past year, it really was. But, for Claire, there wasn't time to sit and wonder.

"Do you know their names? Peter, I have to talk to them." Have to. It wasn't an option. It wasn't a want. It was a biological necessity. She needed the solidarity, she needed the tie to normalcy and, more than anything, she needed to know if they were having the same problems with her powers as Sylar breaking her had done to hers. The lack of pain.

Being able to talk to another regen. Just the idea left her skin chilly.

[human_sponge]

So she did want to talk to them, then. Peter still didn't know if Claire was happy about this or if she just had mixed feelings, but he figured that it wasn't really the time to pick her brain on the whole subject. Better to get her the information and then let her go seek it all out herself.

"I only know the name of one of them," he admitted. "He's called Albedo, but Claire, he's... really young. I'm talking pre-teen." And how was he supposed to explain that the kid was also kind of weird, that he'd gotten a kick out of unsettling him on the bulletin board and carried a shotgun around like it was nothing?

"He's... pretty strange, though. Fair warning." He wasn't sure how much else he could say without turning Claire off entirely, so she would just have to look into it and see what happened. Maybe Albedo would act a little more normal around someone who was closer to his age, even though Peter still felt like there was a large difference in maturity level between the boy and Claire.

"The other one... yeah, I only spoke with him for a few minutes at most. And I'm not sure he'd be willing to talk, anyway." He'd just been through a traumatizing experience, after all. Peter wouldn't feel quite right sending Claire to go talk to him.

[autophoenix]

All things considered, including her own experience, Claire couldn't blame the other guy for not really seeming willing to talk. And she didn't even have that undercutting urge to, either, which was a big point of personal growth for her. More maturity, less selfish demands of people. She finished off her drink as Peter talked, then gave a definite nod.

"Well, if you think the other one gets more comfortable with talking, let me know. I'll try and reach out to this … Albedo." Her nose scrunched a little. Her maturity only went so far. "What kind of name is that, anyway? Guess that's credit to the strangeness, at least." Her brain to mouth filter didn't always operate. Maybe as she got older she'd get a little better at it, but for now, she was just a kid and sometimes the judgment reminiscent of her days as a cheerleader was hard to shake.

Already, though, she'd moved onto considering the best way to get in touch with him. The bulletin, probably. But, was there even a way to subtly word her message and keep it from getting taken down without making him think she was just some weirdo? Maybe if she mentioned Peter's name …

[human_sponge]

"A lot of people here have pretty odd names. It's better not to question it." In reality, Peter knew it was because a majority of them weren't even from Earth, but he didn't know how Claire would handle that explanation. Being able to magically heal all wounds was one thing; other planets and dimensions was another. When had their lives turned into a comic book?

"But yeah, I guess start with him and see what happens." Peter didn't feel all that comfortable around Albedo personally, but he also didn't think he was going to harm Claire. If anything, he'd probably find her just as interesting as she did him, right? And Claire would let him know if anything weird happened.

Honestly, he didn't know why he was so worried about someone who hadn't even gone through puberty.

For once, the intercom went off at a convenient time. Their conversation had hit a logical ending point and they weren't going to get pulled away from each other when they were in the middle of things. "Well, good luck with that, all right? And leave me a message on the bulletin if you want to meet up tonight." He didn't know what the girl had been up to these past few nights, but he always wanted to leave that option open for her.

[autophoenix]

Weird names wasn't really something she'd encountered so far. Natalia was probably the closest, and she was … well, her weirdness fell into different territory entirely. She still wasn't sure what to make of the other girl, and was flummoxed on figuring out if she was actually crazy or just as displaced as Claire and Peter were. Then again, it wasn't exactly Claire's business to judge that.

But, she didn't have much time to consider it, anyway. The intercom crackled to life, the soldiers started nudging them out of the cafeteria, and Claire found herself getting to her feet compliantly. She gave Peter a warm look.

"I'll let you know," and that alone seemed to cover both how it went with Albedo if she could get in touch with him, and if she was going to risk going out again that night when she'd spent so much time shut in by the fear of hallucinating. There was no way to keep the patients obeying then to send them up against their worst fears night after night. "If I don't see you, be safe tonight." And with that, she turned and followed the soldiers to their next activity.