Destined, chapter 16
Title: Destined
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Peter/Claire, West/Claire, Zach/Claire friendship
Rating: PG-13
Summary: As Claire continues with life after New York, the reappearance of her uncle in her life is only the beginning of a series of events that will change her life forever. This Chapter: Claire has a memory problem.
Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15
Fic Art: a, b, c, d, e, f. ♥
A/N: See end of chapter.
Chapter Sixteen - Discovery
As Claire rouses from sleep, her eyes open blearily and focus on the ceiling above her, yellow stained and paint chipped. Sunlight trickles in from an overlarge window to her left and she rolls over in bed, pulling the dull tan sheets around herself tightly.
And then she realizes she has no idea where she is.
This isn't her bed, this isn't her house, and she has no idea how she got here. The feeling is reminiscent of when she woke up on an autopsy table, chest flayed open.
Quickly, she kicks off the blankets and climbs out of bed. "Ow!" cries a voice, momentarily breaking through her panic, and she notices that she's stepped on something, or rather, someone.
A wave of relief washes through her as she sees Zach standing up from the floor, where he'd been sleeping beside her bed. "What's going on?" she demaands worriedly as he wipes the sleep from his eyes. "Where are we?"
"We're at a hotel. In California."
"California? Why the hell are we in California?"
Zach pulls himself from off the floor and sits on the edge of her bed. "What's the last thing you remember, Claire?"
"What do you mean?"
"Claire, you live here," says Zach slowly, as if explaining to her that two plus to equals four.
For a moment, all Claire can do is stare back at him, but then it hits her. Laughing nervously, she punches Zach in the arm. "God, sometimes your jokes just aren't funny," she says.
"I'm not lying," says Zach.
"No..." says Claire, pressing a hand to her hip and playing along, "I live in Texas. With you! We go to the same school. Homecoming is tomorrow!"
"Oh God," says Zach, leaning back dramatically onto the bedspread. "You don't remember anything. We thought maybe it was a temporary thing or something... but you really don't."
"Remember what? Who's we?"
"Claire," he says softly, sitting up again to face her, "Homecoming was months ago."
She tries to process what he's saying, hoping to God he's kidding, feeling anger bubble inside of her because this is low, even for Zach. "God, I don't believe you," she spits out, feeling her cheeks redden. "We're supposed to be friends. What, are you still mad at me for shunning you for four years? Is that why you're doing this?"
But Zach just shakes his head back and forth, pity and seriousness clear as day on his face. Claire's seen the expression on his face more than once and she'd learned to memorize it, because it always meant bad news; they were six when he confessed that he'd accidentally run over her pet lizard with his bicycle, ten when he relayed the information that Bobby Reed didn't have a crush on her, fifteen when he said that he'd lost the tape of her killing herself multiple times.
As she stares at him, she realizes that he's not kidding.
The news comes down on her hard and quickly, and Claire has to sit back down on the bed to catch her breath. Zach's hand is on her shoulder and her mind is swirling with thoughts and questions, but she feels an empty blankness at the same time. She doesn't know what to say, what to ask, what to think. Closing her eyes, she tries to breath deeply, remembering techniques her mother had once randomly bestowed upon her - inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth - and then she starts suddenly.
"Where are my parents? Lyle?" she demands.
Zach bites his lip and she knows what this means, too - he's thinking of lying to her.
"Don't," she says sharply.
"Claire, I don't even know where to start. I mean, you don't remember anything? Nothing about Homecoming or Kirby Plaza or anything?"
"No," she whispers. Heck, she doesn't even know what Kirby Plaza is. "I need to talk to my dad. Where is he?"
Zach says quietly, "He's, um, incapacitated."
"Incapacitated? What does that even mean?"
But before Zach can answer, the door opens. In walks a man that Claire doesn't recognize. He's holding a brown paper bag in one hand and a room key in another, and when he sees her, surprise, shock, and relief combine to form the most fascinating facial expression she's ever seen.
"Claire," he says, but when he says her name, it doesn't sound like her name. The soft reverence in his voice is confusing. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine, I guess."
"Uh, Nathan wanted me to tell you that he'll be back in a couple days to see you," he says. "He had to be with Monty and Simon, but - "
Claire shakes her head. "Who's Nathan?"
The man sighs and it seems to last an eternity, but finally he confirms, "You don't remember."
"No," she says quietly, wanting to take away this stranger's dejectedness.
"This is Peter," offers Zach, "your uh - "
But the stranger Peter exchanges a look with Zach, shaking his head in a curt kind of way. It's subtle, but Claire picks up on it. Zach goes silent and scratches his nose, pretending that he had never spoken.
The room quickly fills with an awkward tension, which Claire breaks by extending her hand for Peter to shake. "Nice to meet you, Peter," she says when he takes her hand, and his lips form into a lopsided smile as he nods.
When Peter drops her hand, Claire laments slightly at the fact that their hands are no longer pressed together. Her gaze remains on Peter's long slender fingers for a brief moment before he clears his throat. "I brought some bagels."
Claire thanks him and takes the bag, pleasantly surprised when she sees that he's tossed strawberry cream cheese into the bag. Sitting back down on the bed next to Zach, she crosses her legs and faces Peter. There's so much she should ask him - who he is, for one, but suddenly she's fueled by only one desire - to eat. Her apparent amnesia and multitude of questions are put on the backburner as she pulls a bagel out of the bag, spreads to the cream cheese over it hurriedly, and takes a bite.
Her senses seem to go into overdrive; the bagel, soft and hard at once on her tongue, with that bready, totally-carbs-but-you-know-you-still-love-me taste, seems to fill every part of her. The thick sweetness of the cream cheese, perfectly complementing the bagel, tastes better than it's ever tasted in her whole life.
"Claire, you okay?" asks Zach and she opens her eyes, slightly embarrassed at the thought of what she must look like lost in complete bliss. She doesn't respond, just shoves the bag of bagels toward her friend, and suddenly she has no desire to eat a bagel ever again.
Peter starts to pace across the room, lost in his own little world, a million emotions flashing across his face, and Claire purses her lips together, watching him. She's brought back to reality very quickly, reminded that something is seriously wrong right now - she has amnesia, her father is "incapacitated", and Zach's face looks sweaty and nervous.
"Please just tell me what's going on," she begs.
Peter suddenly stops pacing, as if the sound of her voice brought him back to earth, and he looks at her, directly into her eyes in a way that she senses he's done before. His eyes are dark, so dark, but when he speaks, Claire can see them sparkle with a lighter brown, and a kind of anxious passion exudes from every part of him.
"I know what you can do, Claire," he says, and she's confused, not understanding what he means, but then he goes on. "I've seen you heal. I have powers, too."
"What?!" she says, astonished.
"There's lots of people out there like you, Claire," interjects Zach, smiling. "You're not alone."
"But," adds Peter, "there's someone out there who's been killing people like us. He takes their powers. We think," and here his voice gets so gentle that Claire has to lean forward to hear him, "that he might have kidnapped you four days ago."
"Four days ago?" she repeats, her head swimming. "How long was I asleep?"
"You were only missing for a day, but you've been out cold for the other three."
"But I'm okay," she insists. "I feel fine. But what about my family? My dad? Is he okay?"
Zach sits down next to her and Claire leans into him, appreciating his presence. "They weren't kidnapped," he tells her. "But they're, well, not in good shape."
"I want to see them," she says. "I want to see my family."
"Okay," says Peter.
*
Her fingers press against the skin on her father's cheeks, rove around her mother's glassy eyes, feel the glued texture of her brother's hair. The three of them are immobile, sitting on a bed like dolls, their bodies in weird positions. Lyle's clinging to her mother, who's lying in bed, and her father looks out of place, sitting upright, his mouth open, his horn-rimmed glasses perfectly perched on his nose.
"He was downstairs on the couch," Zach tells her. "But we thought it'd be better to move him up here."
Claire nods, silent, feeling her eyes prickle with tears. When they fall, she wipes them away with the back of her hand; she feels awkward and tense at the look Peter is giving her, as if he wants to wipe her tears away. But she's always wiped away her own tears, has always been strong on her own, and being looked at this way by a stranger isn't comforting, it's unsettling.
Standing up, she pastes a small smile on her face. She can't stand to be in this room right now, not with her frozen family and this strange man. Tugging on Zach's sleeve, she leaves Peter alone in the room and goes downstairs. Her heart sinks at the sight of a bunch of people crowded in the living room, people she doesn't know, but undoubtedly know her.
They look at her pityingly and she feels frustration bubble inside of her. She doesn’t want these looks, doesn’t want to be kept in the dark. Her eyes search their faces furiously, trying to remember them, the people that are like her. As she stares, they look away, bow their heads, and shuffle their feet awkwardly, which only makes her feel worse.
Her shoulders slump and she’s about to ask Zach if they can just get the hell out of here when the blonde woman steps forward. Her face is pale and her whole face seems to quiver, but she's pretty and there’s a fierce boldness in her eyes that takes Claire aback. This woman is strong, Claire can tell, and is not afraid of anything, least of all a teenaged girl with amnesia.
She speaks kindly, with a maternal softness behind her words and an affectionate lilt in her smile. Introducing herself as Niki, she steps forward and hugs Claire. It’s a real hug, as if Niki knows Claire won’t break, and it’s this more than anything that makes Claire hug the stranger back. She wonders how she knows Niki, if they were close, if they hugged often.
Niki leads her away from everyone else and they go outside, sitting down on the steps of the porch. Claire wonders how long she's lived in California, if she's sat on this porch a lot. But after a few minutes of silence and asks, “How do I know you? Are - are we friends?”
Niki smiles and shakes her head. “I don’t even know you.”
“Then why are you at my house?” Claire says, perhaps a bit loudly, but she’s too surprised to care.
“I know your father.”
“My father? How?”
Niki looks her directly in the eyes, the same way Peter had before, as if she can see right into Claire’s soul. “Claire, I don’t know if you were told, but I’m like you. I have a power. It’s...complicated, but sometimes I lose track of things. Hours, days...they go by and I won’t remember them. Things I’ve done, people I’ve seen, I don’t remember any of it. I see you and I see myself. I know how you feel.”
Claire sees the older woman’s eyes water with tears, watches how it takes her a moment to compose herself. And then she speaks again, but not before glancing quickly at the front door behind them. “I know your father, Claire. Your biological father. He’s a friend of mine - ”
“What?” breathes Claire.
“He was here earlier, looking for you. I - I don’t know how you met him, but you did. He cares about you.”
Claire swallows hard, looks down at her small hands. “I met my father and I can’t even remember?”
Niki places a hand on her back, rubs softly, and soothes her. She whispers that everything will be okay and that she’ll get her memory back eventually and Claire breathes deeply. “Claire,” Niki says again, “there’s something else that you need to know, too - ”
Before Niki can say what she wants, however, the door swings open wildly. Claire wipes away the lingering tears on her face and looks up to see Peter framed in the doorway.
“I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “I didn’t know where you were. Uh, Niki, could I talk to you for a moment?”
Niki gives Claire’s shoulder a squeeze before getting up and following Peter inside. She’s not lonely for long, though, for soon the two Japanese men come outside to join her.
Claire suddenly feels a wave of exhaustion move over her, though she’s only been up for barely two hours. She's reeling from the information about her father and isn't really in the mood to talk to anyone, let alone two more people she doesn't know.
Nevertheless, the Japanese men sit down on either side of her. She hopes they don't want to talk. Apparently, they didn’t have that in mind, because the man to her right gives her a tiny smile and pulls a deck of cards out of his pocket. “We played poker,” he tells her. “Do you want to play?”
Claire takes the deck from his hands and begins to shuffle.
*
“I agree with Peter,” says Zach, raising his hand.
“You’re kidding, right?” Niki crosses her arms, an edge of disbelief and anger in her voice.
“Look, we’re not going to hide it from her forever,” Peter defends himself. “But she’s dealing with a lot right now - ”
“Did Nathan seriously say this was okay?” demands Niki, her husband stiffening slightly beside her at the mention of the politician’s name.
“Just for a second,” snaps Peter, “imagine that you’re Claire, okay? All she knows right now is that she’s been kidnapped, that her family has been turned to...stone or something, and she’s surrounded by a bunch of strange people in a house that she can’t remember. She doesn’t know anything about her best friend’s death, about her biological parents, about Kirby Plaza or changing time - all the other crap that she’s been through. I think we should...withhold some things from her.”
Niki stares at him with defiance. “Keeping Claire in the dark won’t help her at all and it certainly won’t help her to remember.”
Something flickers in Peter’s eyes, but then it’s gone, and he’s returning her hard stare with gusto.
Niki continues, “I told her about Nathan. She knows she found her father.”
“But Nathan's not here,” says Zach.
“He’ll be back."
“She doesn’t know what he looks like.”
Niki glares; Zach falters.
Peter doesn’t say anything and his silence speaks for itself. Niki throws her arms up into the air. “Fine! Don’t tell her that you’re her uncle, that you’re the only family she has right now. Just let her put the pieces together by herself.”
And, with long, hard steps, Niki stalks away.
*
The next morning Claire wakes up to the smell of pancakes and it takes her a moment to realize that it’s not her mother making them. Her mother is a few doors away, along with her father and brother, playing the part of a mannequin. Claire presses her face morosely into her pillow after remembering this, mentally telling herself that it's too early in the morning to cry, and after a few moments, finally pulls herself out of bed.
She pulls on a pair of shorts, tosses a shirt over her head, and slides her feet into flip-flops, but it’s not until she ties back her hair that she realizes something else - she can hear everything going on downstairs. She can hear Zach chuckling, the sound of breakfast plates clunking down onto the wooden table, the scuffle of shoes on the kitchen tile, and the voice of the Indian man she’d met yesterday.
“If we don’t wake her up now, her food will get cold,” Mohinder is saying, but Claire can hear every accented syllable as if he is speaking directly into her ear.
“I’ll go up in a minute. Or, uh, Zach...did you want to get her? She knows you.”
“Good pancakes,” says Zach, and Claire can actually hear him chew his food.
“Okay, I’ll do it,” says Peter.
“Oh my God,” moans Claire, looking at herself in the mirror, examining her ears closely. “What’s wrong with me now?”
She’s tugging on her ears when she hears Peter's knock, and Claire jolts away from the mirror, even though the closed door is blocking her craziness from view. “Uh, hello?” she says nervously.
“Pancakes are downstairs if you want some,” says Peter, but the sound of his voice is normal now.
“Uh, can you knock on the door again?”
He does, his knock a little softer this time, and Claire frowns. His knock sounds normal, too.
“I’ll be down in a minute,” she says finally, with a last half-hearted tug on her ear, then whispers to herself, “I’m crazy.”
*
They walk along the beach and don’t say anything.
As her feet sink into the sand, Claire can see herself here with two boys - carrying one, holding the hand of the other - but she doesn’t know who they are.
The image goes as soon as it comes and Claire turns to Zach. “I just had a flash!”
“Do you remember something?” he asks eagerly. “I’ll go get Peter - ”
“It was of me and two boys, right here, in this spot. Who are they?”
“Simon and Monty?" guesses Zach. "They were kidnapped, too. Somehow, you guys managed to escape. They were with you when you found your way home.”
“Oh.” Her toes squish in the sand, her eyes squint out at the blue waves, and she asks, “Well, where are they now? Are they okay?”
“Yeah, they’re in New York,” says Zach, and they start to walk again, but she can sense he’s hiding something.
“What is it?”
“They’re in New York,” he repeats, “with your biological father. Simon and Monty are your half-brothers.”
*
She’s reading a science textbook, studying lizards and their ability to regenerate body parts, when Peter knocks on her bedroom door - twice this time. “Come in,” she tells him.
Peter stands by the armoire and she lowers her eyes back to her book, not wanting to look at him. In the past two days, she's noticed that there's something so sincere in his eyes when he looks at her, and it makes her feel guilty. He's nice enough; good looking and compassionate and caring, but when she looks at him, she sees a stranger. How is she supposed to feel about someone that she doesn't know, someone she can't remember?
"What's up?" she asks, trying not to convey her unease.
“Zach told me that you remembered Monty and Simon,” he starts, a bit hesitantly.
Claire doesn't respond, hoping that he'll sense that she doesn't want to talk about them. She's spent the whole day trying not feel bitter that her biological father, whoever he is, has another family. She's been trying to not about her father at all, actually.
"Do you want to meet him? Your father?"
"I've met him before," she responds wryly, picking up a pen and scribbling something nonsensical on the pages of her textbook.
"But you don't remember," says Peter, and Claire is irritated.
"Yeah, I know," she snaps. "Just like I can't remember anything else."
"You don't have to meet him if you don't want to."
"Well, I don't."
Peter sits down on the edge of her bed and she can feel him looking down at her, watching her. Claire tries to read, tries to focus, but he's looking at her and not leaving her bedroom and it's distracting. Finally, she glances up at him, locks her eyes onto his, and tries not to tremble. "What?"
"There's a lot of things I want to say to you, but I don't think you'll want to hear them."
Like what? her mind asks, but she bites down on her lip and says nothing. She's so confused. She doesn't know what the hell she wants to hear or not hear. She doesn't know if she wants to know all the things that have gone unspoken - why she was kidnapped, who Sylar is, what the hell has happened in the past few months, if she had liked her bio dad...
Peter's eyes don't leave hers and she decides that the least she can do is figure out why he keeps looking at her the way he does.
She struggles with herself, looking everywhere but at Peter, and feels a blush rise to her cheeks as she says in a scramble, "What's my relationship with you?"
“We met at Homecoming.”
“Homecoming?”
“We kind of crashed into each other.”
“So...we’re friends?”
A serious nod. “Yeah.”
Claire doesn’t know what to say, so she gives him an awkward half-smile and moves her pen between her fingers.
“I can tell you everything, Claire. I can tell you everything that’s happened in these past few months...the major things. How we met, why you live here in California - ”
Even as he says the words, Claire can sense that he doesn’t really want to tell her anything. Just the tone of his voice says that he doesn’t want to hurt her, doesn’t want her to be overwhelmed with whatever bad things had happened and if she’s honest with herself, she isn’t sure she’s ready to hear those things either. So she holds up her hand, silencing him.
“I don’t know if I want to know,” she says slowly. “I mean, I want to…the way everyone looks at me, the way you look at me...I don’t get it. But I don’t know if I can handle it.” I'm just a cheerleader, she adds silently in her head, and just as she thinks it, something changes in Peter's face.
“The Claire I know can handle anything,” he says. “You’re so strong. It’s not a question of you not being able to handle it. It’s a question of whether or not you want to handle it.”
“Do you think I should?” she asks, and the room somehow echoes with the weight of her question.
Peter stands up and starts to pace, not answering her. Claire waits patiently, tapping her pen gently on the pages of her biology book. Peter finally says that he doesn’t want her to, he doesn’t think that someone so young should have to deal with all the stuff she’s gone through. “When we met,” he continues, “you just looked like you had weight of the world on your shoulders. You had this smile, this unbelievably sad smile...what I’m trying to say is, I don’t want to be the one to put that smile back on your face.”
Claire lowers her head, trying to mask her blush. Peter grins slightly, and she realizes it's the first time he's done since she's known him - or at least, these past two days - and he actually has a really nice one.
It disappears quickly, though, as he becomes serious again. "But I will if you want me to."
“Maybe,” starts Claire, “maybe I don’t have to know everything at once. Maybe you can just tell me one thing and then...later, I can ask you more.”
Peter rubs his chin, considering this, and nods. “Okay. What do you want to know?”
She debates asking about her biological father, because she’s been thinking about him all day. But then she realizes that she’s made it through sixteen years without knowing anything about him - she can go awhile longer.
*
Her best friend is dead. The girl she had looked up to for so long, dead. The girl that she had come to resent, but still cared about, is gone. She can’t believe Jackie is gone, killed by a madman. A madman who had tried to kill her, too.
The tears come quickly and Claire doesn’t have to wipe them away because they’ve soaked into Zach’s t-shirt.
Later, when she pulls away sniffling, she apologizes for the wet patch on his shirt, and he says that he hated the shirt anyway.
*
She’s eating dinner with Niki and Peter when a tall, lean boy strides into the kitchen. He has an interesting nose and an emo hair cut, and his face fills with glee at the sight of her. Confused, Claire looks to Peter, silently asking whom this guy is, but Peter’s only response is to look away, his eyes flashing in the bright light of the kitchen.
“Claire! Oh God, Claire!” says the boy, bending down to hug her where she’s sitting. She pats his back nervously, feeling awkward.
“Hi,” she says.
“I’m so glad you’re back - ”
“Where have you been?” asks Peter quietly, not turning his attention away from the sink.
The boy ignores him. “Are you okay?” he asks Claire, touching her hair gently.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“She doesn’t remember who you are,” remarks Peter blandly, telekinetically summoning Niki’s plate and turning on the water faucet.
“What?”
“I kind of have amnesia,” admits Claire, embarrassed. “Sorry,” she finishes in a mumble, as Niki reaches across the table and covers her hand with her own.
The boy blinks, is silent for a few seconds, and then sits down in the chair beside her. “Hey, it’s okay. You’ll get your memory back eventually, right?” He smiles at her reassuringly at her.
“That’s what I’m hoping,” says Claire, surprised by the amount of warmth in his eyes. She sighs inwardly at knowing that she’s going to have to find out what her relationship is to this guy, too.
He extends his hand. “I’m West.”
She shakes his hand. “Claire.”
Peter rolls his eyes.
*
She thrashes against him, trying to injure him, hurt him. But he’s too tall, too strong for her, and he winds up throwing her to the ground. Her face receives the blunt of the impact and she feels a few of her teeth fly out of her mouth. Running her tongue over the empty spots in her gums, she sits up and spits out the blood that's built up in her mouth.
Horrified, she looks up at the man, feeling her teeth stab their way through her gums, rising again. The man's face twists into an evil smirk. “Who are you?” she chokes, spitting more blood out of her mouth.
He walks up to her quickly, purposefully, and wrenches her forcefully to her feet. She can't stop trembling, her mind racing with what he wants and what he's going to do to her. “We’re going to make you cooperate, Claire."
Before she can argue, he gestures to a man in the corner. The man leaves the room and within seconds, returns, two boys struggling in his grip. “Claire!” whimpers the younger one.
She rushes toward them. “Simon! Monty!”
Her captor grabs her by the hair, pulling her back to him. She squeaks with pain as he grips her shoulders tightly, holding her in place by digging his fingers into her collarbone. She shudders and doesn’t move.
“You’ll cooperate, Claire,” he repeats. “Or we’ll kill your brothers.”
*
It’s 2:00 in the morning and Claire wakes up, shaking and sweating. “Was it a flash?” she wonders aloud.
She gets out of bed makes her way to the bathroom, a feeling of unease rooted in the pit of her stomach. The images had been so real, so vivid, that there’s no way her dream couldn’t have been a flash.
Playing the dream over and over in her mind, she turns on the faucet and closes the bathroom door behind her. In a numb state, she wets her hands, splashes water on her pale face, and stares at herself in the mirror. She takes in her soft green eyes, slightly freckled nose, her frowning lips, and she thinks back to her conversation with Peter earlier. He had said that he didn’t want to be the one to put a sad smile on her face again, but as she stares at herself, she realizes that he’s going to have to, whether he wants to or not. Even a few hours earlier, she had been okay with taking things slowly, with having Peter tell her everything piece by piece, but that’s not going to work. She’s getting flashes and she needs to know why; there’s no way she can get to the bottom of her kidnapping without knowing about her past. Jackie had died, for God’s sake, and she had only found out today. She needs to know what other things have happened - what things make Zach stare at her pityingly and give Peter the urge to protect her.
Cool water trickles down her cheeks and she debates whether she should wake Peter up to tell him about her flash. Finally, she shakes her head, deciding to tell him about her flash tomorrow.
Claire turns the faucet off slowly and pushes back a few wet strands of hair behind her ears. Her hand is on the knob of the bathroom door when she is suddenly seized by the desire to look at herself in the mirror again.
She lifts up her tank top, without really knowing why she’s doing so, and half-turns, examining her back in the mirror. Her gasp echoes throughout the bathroom.
They did this, she thinks. Whoever took me, whoever kidnapped me...they did this.
Panicked, she practically runs down the hall. After only a few loud knocks, the door swings open and a disoriented Peter looks her up and down.
“Claire? Are you okay? What’s wrong?” His face is the epitome of concern.
“I didn’t mean to wake you up,” she apologizes, “but I just found...I just - ”
“What is it?”
“I need to show you something.”
*
A/N: I do realize it's been forever since I've had an update. I apologize for this, but I've been extremely busy in RL. College has been weird, I've been worried sick about certain family members, I've been having my own boy issues, and I've been trying to get my relationship with God back on track.
So, that being said, I will try to update at least every month. This fic is definitely within the realms of AU right now because of Season 2, so hopefully you guys will still read it! You guys really are the best readers/reviewers and I so appreciate you guys sticking with me through all this stuff. You're the best! :)
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Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Peter/Claire, West/Claire, Zach/Claire friendship
Rating: PG-13
Summary: As Claire continues with life after New York, the reappearance of her uncle in her life is only the beginning of a series of events that will change her life forever. This Chapter: Claire has a memory problem.
Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15
Fic Art: a, b, c, d, e, f. ♥
A/N: See end of chapter.
Chapter Sixteen - Discovery
As Claire rouses from sleep, her eyes open blearily and focus on the ceiling above her, yellow stained and paint chipped. Sunlight trickles in from an overlarge window to her left and she rolls over in bed, pulling the dull tan sheets around herself tightly.
And then she realizes she has no idea where she is.
This isn't her bed, this isn't her house, and she has no idea how she got here. The feeling is reminiscent of when she woke up on an autopsy table, chest flayed open.
Quickly, she kicks off the blankets and climbs out of bed. "Ow!" cries a voice, momentarily breaking through her panic, and she notices that she's stepped on something, or rather, someone.
A wave of relief washes through her as she sees Zach standing up from the floor, where he'd been sleeping beside her bed. "What's going on?" she demaands worriedly as he wipes the sleep from his eyes. "Where are we?"
"We're at a hotel. In California."
"California? Why the hell are we in California?"
Zach pulls himself from off the floor and sits on the edge of her bed. "What's the last thing you remember, Claire?"
"What do you mean?"
"Claire, you live here," says Zach slowly, as if explaining to her that two plus to equals four.
For a moment, all Claire can do is stare back at him, but then it hits her. Laughing nervously, she punches Zach in the arm. "God, sometimes your jokes just aren't funny," she says.
"I'm not lying," says Zach.
"No..." says Claire, pressing a hand to her hip and playing along, "I live in Texas. With you! We go to the same school. Homecoming is tomorrow!"
"Oh God," says Zach, leaning back dramatically onto the bedspread. "You don't remember anything. We thought maybe it was a temporary thing or something... but you really don't."
"Remember what? Who's we?"
"Claire," he says softly, sitting up again to face her, "Homecoming was months ago."
She tries to process what he's saying, hoping to God he's kidding, feeling anger bubble inside of her because this is low, even for Zach. "God, I don't believe you," she spits out, feeling her cheeks redden. "We're supposed to be friends. What, are you still mad at me for shunning you for four years? Is that why you're doing this?"
But Zach just shakes his head back and forth, pity and seriousness clear as day on his face. Claire's seen the expression on his face more than once and she'd learned to memorize it, because it always meant bad news; they were six when he confessed that he'd accidentally run over her pet lizard with his bicycle, ten when he relayed the information that Bobby Reed didn't have a crush on her, fifteen when he said that he'd lost the tape of her killing herself multiple times.
As she stares at him, she realizes that he's not kidding.
The news comes down on her hard and quickly, and Claire has to sit back down on the bed to catch her breath. Zach's hand is on her shoulder and her mind is swirling with thoughts and questions, but she feels an empty blankness at the same time. She doesn't know what to say, what to ask, what to think. Closing her eyes, she tries to breath deeply, remembering techniques her mother had once randomly bestowed upon her - inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth - and then she starts suddenly.
"Where are my parents? Lyle?" she demands.
Zach bites his lip and she knows what this means, too - he's thinking of lying to her.
"Don't," she says sharply.
"Claire, I don't even know where to start. I mean, you don't remember anything? Nothing about Homecoming or Kirby Plaza or anything?"
"No," she whispers. Heck, she doesn't even know what Kirby Plaza is. "I need to talk to my dad. Where is he?"
Zach says quietly, "He's, um, incapacitated."
"Incapacitated? What does that even mean?"
But before Zach can answer, the door opens. In walks a man that Claire doesn't recognize. He's holding a brown paper bag in one hand and a room key in another, and when he sees her, surprise, shock, and relief combine to form the most fascinating facial expression she's ever seen.
"Claire," he says, but when he says her name, it doesn't sound like her name. The soft reverence in his voice is confusing. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine, I guess."
"Uh, Nathan wanted me to tell you that he'll be back in a couple days to see you," he says. "He had to be with Monty and Simon, but - "
Claire shakes her head. "Who's Nathan?"
The man sighs and it seems to last an eternity, but finally he confirms, "You don't remember."
"No," she says quietly, wanting to take away this stranger's dejectedness.
"This is Peter," offers Zach, "your uh - "
But the stranger Peter exchanges a look with Zach, shaking his head in a curt kind of way. It's subtle, but Claire picks up on it. Zach goes silent and scratches his nose, pretending that he had never spoken.
The room quickly fills with an awkward tension, which Claire breaks by extending her hand for Peter to shake. "Nice to meet you, Peter," she says when he takes her hand, and his lips form into a lopsided smile as he nods.
When Peter drops her hand, Claire laments slightly at the fact that their hands are no longer pressed together. Her gaze remains on Peter's long slender fingers for a brief moment before he clears his throat. "I brought some bagels."
Claire thanks him and takes the bag, pleasantly surprised when she sees that he's tossed strawberry cream cheese into the bag. Sitting back down on the bed next to Zach, she crosses her legs and faces Peter. There's so much she should ask him - who he is, for one, but suddenly she's fueled by only one desire - to eat. Her apparent amnesia and multitude of questions are put on the backburner as she pulls a bagel out of the bag, spreads to the cream cheese over it hurriedly, and takes a bite.
Her senses seem to go into overdrive; the bagel, soft and hard at once on her tongue, with that bready, totally-carbs-but-you-know-you-still-love-me taste, seems to fill every part of her. The thick sweetness of the cream cheese, perfectly complementing the bagel, tastes better than it's ever tasted in her whole life.
"Claire, you okay?" asks Zach and she opens her eyes, slightly embarrassed at the thought of what she must look like lost in complete bliss. She doesn't respond, just shoves the bag of bagels toward her friend, and suddenly she has no desire to eat a bagel ever again.
Peter starts to pace across the room, lost in his own little world, a million emotions flashing across his face, and Claire purses her lips together, watching him. She's brought back to reality very quickly, reminded that something is seriously wrong right now - she has amnesia, her father is "incapacitated", and Zach's face looks sweaty and nervous.
"Please just tell me what's going on," she begs.
Peter suddenly stops pacing, as if the sound of her voice brought him back to earth, and he looks at her, directly into her eyes in a way that she senses he's done before. His eyes are dark, so dark, but when he speaks, Claire can see them sparkle with a lighter brown, and a kind of anxious passion exudes from every part of him.
"I know what you can do, Claire," he says, and she's confused, not understanding what he means, but then he goes on. "I've seen you heal. I have powers, too."
"What?!" she says, astonished.
"There's lots of people out there like you, Claire," interjects Zach, smiling. "You're not alone."
"But," adds Peter, "there's someone out there who's been killing people like us. He takes their powers. We think," and here his voice gets so gentle that Claire has to lean forward to hear him, "that he might have kidnapped you four days ago."
"Four days ago?" she repeats, her head swimming. "How long was I asleep?"
"You were only missing for a day, but you've been out cold for the other three."
"But I'm okay," she insists. "I feel fine. But what about my family? My dad? Is he okay?"
Zach sits down next to her and Claire leans into him, appreciating his presence. "They weren't kidnapped," he tells her. "But they're, well, not in good shape."
"I want to see them," she says. "I want to see my family."
"Okay," says Peter.
*
Her fingers press against the skin on her father's cheeks, rove around her mother's glassy eyes, feel the glued texture of her brother's hair. The three of them are immobile, sitting on a bed like dolls, their bodies in weird positions. Lyle's clinging to her mother, who's lying in bed, and her father looks out of place, sitting upright, his mouth open, his horn-rimmed glasses perfectly perched on his nose.
"He was downstairs on the couch," Zach tells her. "But we thought it'd be better to move him up here."
Claire nods, silent, feeling her eyes prickle with tears. When they fall, she wipes them away with the back of her hand; she feels awkward and tense at the look Peter is giving her, as if he wants to wipe her tears away. But she's always wiped away her own tears, has always been strong on her own, and being looked at this way by a stranger isn't comforting, it's unsettling.
Standing up, she pastes a small smile on her face. She can't stand to be in this room right now, not with her frozen family and this strange man. Tugging on Zach's sleeve, she leaves Peter alone in the room and goes downstairs. Her heart sinks at the sight of a bunch of people crowded in the living room, people she doesn't know, but undoubtedly know her.
They look at her pityingly and she feels frustration bubble inside of her. She doesn’t want these looks, doesn’t want to be kept in the dark. Her eyes search their faces furiously, trying to remember them, the people that are like her. As she stares, they look away, bow their heads, and shuffle their feet awkwardly, which only makes her feel worse.
Her shoulders slump and she’s about to ask Zach if they can just get the hell out of here when the blonde woman steps forward. Her face is pale and her whole face seems to quiver, but she's pretty and there’s a fierce boldness in her eyes that takes Claire aback. This woman is strong, Claire can tell, and is not afraid of anything, least of all a teenaged girl with amnesia.
She speaks kindly, with a maternal softness behind her words and an affectionate lilt in her smile. Introducing herself as Niki, she steps forward and hugs Claire. It’s a real hug, as if Niki knows Claire won’t break, and it’s this more than anything that makes Claire hug the stranger back. She wonders how she knows Niki, if they were close, if they hugged often.
Niki leads her away from everyone else and they go outside, sitting down on the steps of the porch. Claire wonders how long she's lived in California, if she's sat on this porch a lot. But after a few minutes of silence and asks, “How do I know you? Are - are we friends?”
Niki smiles and shakes her head. “I don’t even know you.”
“Then why are you at my house?” Claire says, perhaps a bit loudly, but she’s too surprised to care.
“I know your father.”
“My father? How?”
Niki looks her directly in the eyes, the same way Peter had before, as if she can see right into Claire’s soul. “Claire, I don’t know if you were told, but I’m like you. I have a power. It’s...complicated, but sometimes I lose track of things. Hours, days...they go by and I won’t remember them. Things I’ve done, people I’ve seen, I don’t remember any of it. I see you and I see myself. I know how you feel.”
Claire sees the older woman’s eyes water with tears, watches how it takes her a moment to compose herself. And then she speaks again, but not before glancing quickly at the front door behind them. “I know your father, Claire. Your biological father. He’s a friend of mine - ”
“What?” breathes Claire.
“He was here earlier, looking for you. I - I don’t know how you met him, but you did. He cares about you.”
Claire swallows hard, looks down at her small hands. “I met my father and I can’t even remember?”
Niki places a hand on her back, rubs softly, and soothes her. She whispers that everything will be okay and that she’ll get her memory back eventually and Claire breathes deeply. “Claire,” Niki says again, “there’s something else that you need to know, too - ”
Before Niki can say what she wants, however, the door swings open wildly. Claire wipes away the lingering tears on her face and looks up to see Peter framed in the doorway.
“I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “I didn’t know where you were. Uh, Niki, could I talk to you for a moment?”
Niki gives Claire’s shoulder a squeeze before getting up and following Peter inside. She’s not lonely for long, though, for soon the two Japanese men come outside to join her.
Claire suddenly feels a wave of exhaustion move over her, though she’s only been up for barely two hours. She's reeling from the information about her father and isn't really in the mood to talk to anyone, let alone two more people she doesn't know.
Nevertheless, the Japanese men sit down on either side of her. She hopes they don't want to talk. Apparently, they didn’t have that in mind, because the man to her right gives her a tiny smile and pulls a deck of cards out of his pocket. “We played poker,” he tells her. “Do you want to play?”
Claire takes the deck from his hands and begins to shuffle.
*
“I agree with Peter,” says Zach, raising his hand.
“You’re kidding, right?” Niki crosses her arms, an edge of disbelief and anger in her voice.
“Look, we’re not going to hide it from her forever,” Peter defends himself. “But she’s dealing with a lot right now - ”
“Did Nathan seriously say this was okay?” demands Niki, her husband stiffening slightly beside her at the mention of the politician’s name.
“Just for a second,” snaps Peter, “imagine that you’re Claire, okay? All she knows right now is that she’s been kidnapped, that her family has been turned to...stone or something, and she’s surrounded by a bunch of strange people in a house that she can’t remember. She doesn’t know anything about her best friend’s death, about her biological parents, about Kirby Plaza or changing time - all the other crap that she’s been through. I think we should...withhold some things from her.”
Niki stares at him with defiance. “Keeping Claire in the dark won’t help her at all and it certainly won’t help her to remember.”
Something flickers in Peter’s eyes, but then it’s gone, and he’s returning her hard stare with gusto.
Niki continues, “I told her about Nathan. She knows she found her father.”
“But Nathan's not here,” says Zach.
“He’ll be back."
“She doesn’t know what he looks like.”
Niki glares; Zach falters.
Peter doesn’t say anything and his silence speaks for itself. Niki throws her arms up into the air. “Fine! Don’t tell her that you’re her uncle, that you’re the only family she has right now. Just let her put the pieces together by herself.”
And, with long, hard steps, Niki stalks away.
*
The next morning Claire wakes up to the smell of pancakes and it takes her a moment to realize that it’s not her mother making them. Her mother is a few doors away, along with her father and brother, playing the part of a mannequin. Claire presses her face morosely into her pillow after remembering this, mentally telling herself that it's too early in the morning to cry, and after a few moments, finally pulls herself out of bed.
She pulls on a pair of shorts, tosses a shirt over her head, and slides her feet into flip-flops, but it’s not until she ties back her hair that she realizes something else - she can hear everything going on downstairs. She can hear Zach chuckling, the sound of breakfast plates clunking down onto the wooden table, the scuffle of shoes on the kitchen tile, and the voice of the Indian man she’d met yesterday.
“If we don’t wake her up now, her food will get cold,” Mohinder is saying, but Claire can hear every accented syllable as if he is speaking directly into her ear.
“I’ll go up in a minute. Or, uh, Zach...did you want to get her? She knows you.”
“Good pancakes,” says Zach, and Claire can actually hear him chew his food.
“Okay, I’ll do it,” says Peter.
“Oh my God,” moans Claire, looking at herself in the mirror, examining her ears closely. “What’s wrong with me now?”
She’s tugging on her ears when she hears Peter's knock, and Claire jolts away from the mirror, even though the closed door is blocking her craziness from view. “Uh, hello?” she says nervously.
“Pancakes are downstairs if you want some,” says Peter, but the sound of his voice is normal now.
“Uh, can you knock on the door again?”
He does, his knock a little softer this time, and Claire frowns. His knock sounds normal, too.
“I’ll be down in a minute,” she says finally, with a last half-hearted tug on her ear, then whispers to herself, “I’m crazy.”
*
They walk along the beach and don’t say anything.
As her feet sink into the sand, Claire can see herself here with two boys - carrying one, holding the hand of the other - but she doesn’t know who they are.
The image goes as soon as it comes and Claire turns to Zach. “I just had a flash!”
“Do you remember something?” he asks eagerly. “I’ll go get Peter - ”
“It was of me and two boys, right here, in this spot. Who are they?”
“Simon and Monty?" guesses Zach. "They were kidnapped, too. Somehow, you guys managed to escape. They were with you when you found your way home.”
“Oh.” Her toes squish in the sand, her eyes squint out at the blue waves, and she asks, “Well, where are they now? Are they okay?”
“Yeah, they’re in New York,” says Zach, and they start to walk again, but she can sense he’s hiding something.
“What is it?”
“They’re in New York,” he repeats, “with your biological father. Simon and Monty are your half-brothers.”
*
She’s reading a science textbook, studying lizards and their ability to regenerate body parts, when Peter knocks on her bedroom door - twice this time. “Come in,” she tells him.
Peter stands by the armoire and she lowers her eyes back to her book, not wanting to look at him. In the past two days, she's noticed that there's something so sincere in his eyes when he looks at her, and it makes her feel guilty. He's nice enough; good looking and compassionate and caring, but when she looks at him, she sees a stranger. How is she supposed to feel about someone that she doesn't know, someone she can't remember?
"What's up?" she asks, trying not to convey her unease.
“Zach told me that you remembered Monty and Simon,” he starts, a bit hesitantly.
Claire doesn't respond, hoping that he'll sense that she doesn't want to talk about them. She's spent the whole day trying not feel bitter that her biological father, whoever he is, has another family. She's been trying to not about her father at all, actually.
"Do you want to meet him? Your father?"
"I've met him before," she responds wryly, picking up a pen and scribbling something nonsensical on the pages of her textbook.
"But you don't remember," says Peter, and Claire is irritated.
"Yeah, I know," she snaps. "Just like I can't remember anything else."
"You don't have to meet him if you don't want to."
"Well, I don't."
Peter sits down on the edge of her bed and she can feel him looking down at her, watching her. Claire tries to read, tries to focus, but he's looking at her and not leaving her bedroom and it's distracting. Finally, she glances up at him, locks her eyes onto his, and tries not to tremble. "What?"
"There's a lot of things I want to say to you, but I don't think you'll want to hear them."
Like what? her mind asks, but she bites down on her lip and says nothing. She's so confused. She doesn't know what the hell she wants to hear or not hear. She doesn't know if she wants to know all the things that have gone unspoken - why she was kidnapped, who Sylar is, what the hell has happened in the past few months, if she had liked her bio dad...
Peter's eyes don't leave hers and she decides that the least she can do is figure out why he keeps looking at her the way he does.
She struggles with herself, looking everywhere but at Peter, and feels a blush rise to her cheeks as she says in a scramble, "What's my relationship with you?"
“We met at Homecoming.”
“Homecoming?”
“We kind of crashed into each other.”
“So...we’re friends?”
A serious nod. “Yeah.”
Claire doesn’t know what to say, so she gives him an awkward half-smile and moves her pen between her fingers.
“I can tell you everything, Claire. I can tell you everything that’s happened in these past few months...the major things. How we met, why you live here in California - ”
Even as he says the words, Claire can sense that he doesn’t really want to tell her anything. Just the tone of his voice says that he doesn’t want to hurt her, doesn’t want her to be overwhelmed with whatever bad things had happened and if she’s honest with herself, she isn’t sure she’s ready to hear those things either. So she holds up her hand, silencing him.
“I don’t know if I want to know,” she says slowly. “I mean, I want to…the way everyone looks at me, the way you look at me...I don’t get it. But I don’t know if I can handle it.” I'm just a cheerleader, she adds silently in her head, and just as she thinks it, something changes in Peter's face.
“The Claire I know can handle anything,” he says. “You’re so strong. It’s not a question of you not being able to handle it. It’s a question of whether or not you want to handle it.”
“Do you think I should?” she asks, and the room somehow echoes with the weight of her question.
Peter stands up and starts to pace, not answering her. Claire waits patiently, tapping her pen gently on the pages of her biology book. Peter finally says that he doesn’t want her to, he doesn’t think that someone so young should have to deal with all the stuff she’s gone through. “When we met,” he continues, “you just looked like you had weight of the world on your shoulders. You had this smile, this unbelievably sad smile...what I’m trying to say is, I don’t want to be the one to put that smile back on your face.”
Claire lowers her head, trying to mask her blush. Peter grins slightly, and she realizes it's the first time he's done since she's known him - or at least, these past two days - and he actually has a really nice one.
It disappears quickly, though, as he becomes serious again. "But I will if you want me to."
“Maybe,” starts Claire, “maybe I don’t have to know everything at once. Maybe you can just tell me one thing and then...later, I can ask you more.”
Peter rubs his chin, considering this, and nods. “Okay. What do you want to know?”
She debates asking about her biological father, because she’s been thinking about him all day. But then she realizes that she’s made it through sixteen years without knowing anything about him - she can go awhile longer.
*
Her best friend is dead. The girl she had looked up to for so long, dead. The girl that she had come to resent, but still cared about, is gone. She can’t believe Jackie is gone, killed by a madman. A madman who had tried to kill her, too.
The tears come quickly and Claire doesn’t have to wipe them away because they’ve soaked into Zach’s t-shirt.
Later, when she pulls away sniffling, she apologizes for the wet patch on his shirt, and he says that he hated the shirt anyway.
*
She’s eating dinner with Niki and Peter when a tall, lean boy strides into the kitchen. He has an interesting nose and an emo hair cut, and his face fills with glee at the sight of her. Confused, Claire looks to Peter, silently asking whom this guy is, but Peter’s only response is to look away, his eyes flashing in the bright light of the kitchen.
“Claire! Oh God, Claire!” says the boy, bending down to hug her where she’s sitting. She pats his back nervously, feeling awkward.
“Hi,” she says.
“I’m so glad you’re back - ”
“Where have you been?” asks Peter quietly, not turning his attention away from the sink.
The boy ignores him. “Are you okay?” he asks Claire, touching her hair gently.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“She doesn’t remember who you are,” remarks Peter blandly, telekinetically summoning Niki’s plate and turning on the water faucet.
“What?”
“I kind of have amnesia,” admits Claire, embarrassed. “Sorry,” she finishes in a mumble, as Niki reaches across the table and covers her hand with her own.
The boy blinks, is silent for a few seconds, and then sits down in the chair beside her. “Hey, it’s okay. You’ll get your memory back eventually, right?” He smiles at her reassuringly at her.
“That’s what I’m hoping,” says Claire, surprised by the amount of warmth in his eyes. She sighs inwardly at knowing that she’s going to have to find out what her relationship is to this guy, too.
He extends his hand. “I’m West.”
She shakes his hand. “Claire.”
Peter rolls his eyes.
*
She thrashes against him, trying to injure him, hurt him. But he’s too tall, too strong for her, and he winds up throwing her to the ground. Her face receives the blunt of the impact and she feels a few of her teeth fly out of her mouth. Running her tongue over the empty spots in her gums, she sits up and spits out the blood that's built up in her mouth.
Horrified, she looks up at the man, feeling her teeth stab their way through her gums, rising again. The man's face twists into an evil smirk. “Who are you?” she chokes, spitting more blood out of her mouth.
He walks up to her quickly, purposefully, and wrenches her forcefully to her feet. She can't stop trembling, her mind racing with what he wants and what he's going to do to her. “We’re going to make you cooperate, Claire."
Before she can argue, he gestures to a man in the corner. The man leaves the room and within seconds, returns, two boys struggling in his grip. “Claire!” whimpers the younger one.
She rushes toward them. “Simon! Monty!”
Her captor grabs her by the hair, pulling her back to him. She squeaks with pain as he grips her shoulders tightly, holding her in place by digging his fingers into her collarbone. She shudders and doesn’t move.
“You’ll cooperate, Claire,” he repeats. “Or we’ll kill your brothers.”
*
It’s 2:00 in the morning and Claire wakes up, shaking and sweating. “Was it a flash?” she wonders aloud.
She gets out of bed makes her way to the bathroom, a feeling of unease rooted in the pit of her stomach. The images had been so real, so vivid, that there’s no way her dream couldn’t have been a flash.
Playing the dream over and over in her mind, she turns on the faucet and closes the bathroom door behind her. In a numb state, she wets her hands, splashes water on her pale face, and stares at herself in the mirror. She takes in her soft green eyes, slightly freckled nose, her frowning lips, and she thinks back to her conversation with Peter earlier. He had said that he didn’t want to be the one to put a sad smile on her face again, but as she stares at herself, she realizes that he’s going to have to, whether he wants to or not. Even a few hours earlier, she had been okay with taking things slowly, with having Peter tell her everything piece by piece, but that’s not going to work. She’s getting flashes and she needs to know why; there’s no way she can get to the bottom of her kidnapping without knowing about her past. Jackie had died, for God’s sake, and she had only found out today. She needs to know what other things have happened - what things make Zach stare at her pityingly and give Peter the urge to protect her.
Cool water trickles down her cheeks and she debates whether she should wake Peter up to tell him about her flash. Finally, she shakes her head, deciding to tell him about her flash tomorrow.
Claire turns the faucet off slowly and pushes back a few wet strands of hair behind her ears. Her hand is on the knob of the bathroom door when she is suddenly seized by the desire to look at herself in the mirror again.
She lifts up her tank top, without really knowing why she’s doing so, and half-turns, examining her back in the mirror. Her gasp echoes throughout the bathroom.
They did this, she thinks. Whoever took me, whoever kidnapped me...they did this.
Panicked, she practically runs down the hall. After only a few loud knocks, the door swings open and a disoriented Peter looks her up and down.
“Claire? Are you okay? What’s wrong?” His face is the epitome of concern.
“I didn’t mean to wake you up,” she apologizes, “but I just found...I just - ”
“What is it?”
“I need to show you something.”
*
A/N: I do realize it's been forever since I've had an update. I apologize for this, but I've been extremely busy in RL. College has been weird, I've been worried sick about certain family members, I've been having my own boy issues, and I've been trying to get my relationship with God back on track.
So, that being said, I will try to update at least every month. This fic is definitely within the realms of AU right now because of Season 2, so hopefully you guys will still read it! You guys really are the best readers/reviewers and I so appreciate you guys sticking with me through all this stuff. You're the best! :)
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