unfinished blah de blah
She is Claire Bennet, and she is dressed in red and white.
Her smile is large and as practiced as the moves she displays in front of the coach and the other girls. Her muscles are good at recalling the steps to the cheer, and there is no hesitation as she twirls and cartwheels. She is school spirit and the personification of cheer with bright green eyes and blonde curls that have been pinned and contorted and sprayed into perfection.
But as she takes out pin after pin later that night in her bedroom, looking into the mirror, she doesn’t feel cheerful. She doesn’t see it. She sees a girl that is frowning, even when she does smile. Does Claire Bennet smile so hard her cheeks hurt? Smiling shouldn't be fake. Smiling shouldn't hurt.
A pin pricks her finger and she sticks it in her mouth. When she looks down at the blood, the wound is gone.
She is Claire Bennet, and her heart is fluttering in her chest like a moth.
He’s a football player. His charming smile matches her own coy one, and this is how it’s supposed to be. This is normal. She can see Zach rolling his eyes from the edges of her vision, see Jackie frown in jealously, but Claire does not care right now because this is what she wants. Fingers entwined, giggle on her lips, she wonders if such reactions should make her feel as nervous as they do.
Brody’s eyes travel over her body and she finds herself enraptured, but she knows it’s not him. It’s with the idea, the feeling, that this is normal.
All she wants is normal.
She is Claire Bear.
Her father asks how school was, and she answers honestly (if she conveniently forgets her fall off the top of the pyramid during practice, vertebrae snapping and then mending before anyone could get the nurse, she doesn’t dwell on it), and he accepts it. He does not know that she knows that she is supposed to forget. Her smile is a lie as she feels sick to her stomach. Every action is a lie. Her life is a lie.
But she smiles once more before sliding off the stool in the kitchen and going to her room, and she does her best not to make eye contact with the family photos on the wall.
Her father used to be her hero. She used to be a normal girl.
Things used to be so different.
She is Vivian Lewis and she is leaving everything behind.
Zach. Odessa. Her family. Her eyes sting as she tries to push out the images flooding her mind-her father, on his knees, bleeding. The Haitian removing his memories. Holding him, as if that would keep them together. Her nails dig into the passport in her hands, and she glances at the name once again.
Vivian Lewis sounds like a normal girl. Viv. Vivi. Miss Lewis.
She doesn’t know what Canada is like, but she knows it’s not Odessa or home or where she wants to be. She understands why she can’t return to Odessa, but she doesn’t understand why she can’t be with someone who makes her feel safe. Peter saved her life before. He can do it again. He saved Claire Bennet, and she wishes to kill Vivian Lewis before she can breathe.
But...
She looks at the Haitian standing next to her and wonders if it would be easier if he made her forget Claire Bennet altogether.
She is Claire Bennet, and she is not a Petrelli.
Angela is imposing despite her tiny frame, and Claire is unsure what to call her. Grandma? Grandmother? Mrs. Petrelli? She’s unsure, so she goes with the safe option-Angela. Nathan is easier. She can see the regret in his eyes, but sometimes she wonders if it’s aimed at her or at her timing. She calls him Nathan. He is not her dad. They are related by blood, but they aren’t family.
She’s too suburban for this family, this mansion, but Peter helps. He may be a Petrelli by blood, but he is an outsider. Just like her. Yet she dresses in nicer clothes, holds herself more rigid, minds which fork she uses at dinner and makes sure to keep her napkin on her lap and her elbows off the table. She is Texas and sunny days and football games and pink clothing. They are New York and money and class and whites, blacks, and grays. She trails behind Peter like a ghost when she can, hoping that if she can't fit in she can at least be around someone who she thinks she can let her shoulders slouch around and won't think less of her for not sitting with both feet on the floor.
Peter does not know that his brief, considerate smiles are saving Claire Bennet as much as he did during homecoming. She's suffocating here.
She is Claire Butler and she lives in Costa Verde.
Blonde hair helps her blend in, though it is not entirely seamless. She thinks people can see it-it’s in the way she smiles, walks, sits. West sees it. She’s different. Special. She was an alien that looked up at the sky every now and then, but she feels like a robot as she goes through the motions at school.
West is not Zach. Costa Verde High is not Union Wells. The captain of the cheer team is not Jackie. She is not Claire Bennet. Everyone is an actor filling in roles.
Claire sits on the sofa next to her brother and looks at him out of the corner her eye, opens her mouth-doesn’t this feel fake to you? I’m sorry. I hate this. I wish your life was more normal, too-but the words die in her throat and she says nothing.
Claire Butler sits and says nothing at all, thinking it’s better this way. Claire Bennet disagrees.
She is Claire Bennet, and she is following in her father’s footsteps.
She lies to her mother. She knows how to aim a gun, aim a taser, and she thinks she is invincible because as far as she’s concerned, she is. She may not be able to cut open heads or stop time or lift cars, but she can be beaten down and get back up. If anything, she is resilient-though it’s not a character trait as much as it is a biological trait.
Once, she held a gun in her hands and aimed it at her uncle, and she shook. She couldn’t stop shaking. She imagines that situation now. Eyes dark and narrowed, weapon held with confidence and calm. She wonders, now, if she would be able to kill a relative. She would never kill Peter (he would never do anything to deserve being murdered), but the other Petrelli pops into her mind. Nathan.
She wonders if she would be able to kill her father-her biological father-when he himself has killed so many.
Then again, so has her real father.
Claire decides to not think about it. There are people to find, to hide away, to make fake identities for.
She knows this is not Claire Bennet, but there’s nothing else she can do.
She is Bonnie Monaco, and she’s holding Claire Bennet in the past.
Part of her still can’t wrap her mind around it-the baby in her arms, giggling and smiling, is her. At this point, she’s unsure if her ability has manifested. She doesn’t want to know what would happen if she dropped herself on her head (not that she needed an excuse for any of her stupid mistakes), and she doesn’t know how she’s going to get back to the present.
But for the moment, it doesn’t matter.
She looks at the baby girl in front of her and sees so much potential. Claire wonders if she could somehow alter her path. Do something, whisper something into her ear that would stay for years and years and help her with the pain of being different, of feeling nothing at all, and losing everything. She wonders who Claire Bennet would be if she listened to her father and avoided homecoming, if she never met any of the Petrelli's, if she still lived in Odessa.
Ultimately, she decides to warn her about the little things. Boys in elementary school, mean girls. Claire has read enough fiction and seen enough movies to know that stepping on butterflies never leads to anything good.
She is Claire Bennet, and she has just murdered a man.
The glass had dug into her own palms as she jammed it into the back of Sylar’s head, but the marks are long gone and she hadn’t felt a thing. She killed a man-a monster, she tells herself, a murderer. Her father and Angela don’t look at her as Primatech burns like the fire her mother once held in her palms, the fire she used to train her, but she feels she should be burning, too. Meredith is dead, and Sylar is dead; she supposes the grief and the relief cancel each other out and she once again feels nothing.
Perhaps not nothing.
There is a tight feeling in her chest, and she can’t believe it’s over. Sylar is dead by her hand. But she had seen him die before, and there will be no body found in the ashes of the building. She’s unsure how that makes her feel. She is not sure if she’s a murderer.
She is Claire Bennet, and she is a college freshman.
Like all the people around her, she is stepping into something new and thrilling. Her hands clutch her box of belongings against her chest, small memories of Costa Verde and New York-teddy bears from her parents and a card from Nathan. Her tuition is the largest gift from New York, thanks to her grandmother.
College is a chance to reinvent herself. UUUGHGSIDGBUSDGSDG
Her smile is large and as practiced as the moves she displays in front of the coach and the other girls. Her muscles are good at recalling the steps to the cheer, and there is no hesitation as she twirls and cartwheels. She is school spirit and the personification of cheer with bright green eyes and blonde curls that have been pinned and contorted and sprayed into perfection.
But as she takes out pin after pin later that night in her bedroom, looking into the mirror, she doesn’t feel cheerful. She doesn’t see it. She sees a girl that is frowning, even when she does smile. Does Claire Bennet smile so hard her cheeks hurt? Smiling shouldn't be fake. Smiling shouldn't hurt.
A pin pricks her finger and she sticks it in her mouth. When she looks down at the blood, the wound is gone.
She is Claire Bennet, and her heart is fluttering in her chest like a moth.
He’s a football player. His charming smile matches her own coy one, and this is how it’s supposed to be. This is normal. She can see Zach rolling his eyes from the edges of her vision, see Jackie frown in jealously, but Claire does not care right now because this is what she wants. Fingers entwined, giggle on her lips, she wonders if such reactions should make her feel as nervous as they do.
Brody’s eyes travel over her body and she finds herself enraptured, but she knows it’s not him. It’s with the idea, the feeling, that this is normal.
All she wants is normal.
She is Claire Bear.
Her father asks how school was, and she answers honestly (if she conveniently forgets her fall off the top of the pyramid during practice, vertebrae snapping and then mending before anyone could get the nurse, she doesn’t dwell on it), and he accepts it. He does not know that she knows that she is supposed to forget. Her smile is a lie as she feels sick to her stomach. Every action is a lie. Her life is a lie.
But she smiles once more before sliding off the stool in the kitchen and going to her room, and she does her best not to make eye contact with the family photos on the wall.
Her father used to be her hero. She used to be a normal girl.
Things used to be so different.
She is Vivian Lewis and she is leaving everything behind.
Zach. Odessa. Her family. Her eyes sting as she tries to push out the images flooding her mind-her father, on his knees, bleeding. The Haitian removing his memories. Holding him, as if that would keep them together. Her nails dig into the passport in her hands, and she glances at the name once again.
Vivian Lewis sounds like a normal girl. Viv. Vivi. Miss Lewis.
She doesn’t know what Canada is like, but she knows it’s not Odessa or home or where she wants to be. She understands why she can’t return to Odessa, but she doesn’t understand why she can’t be with someone who makes her feel safe. Peter saved her life before. He can do it again. He saved Claire Bennet, and she wishes to kill Vivian Lewis before she can breathe.
But...
She looks at the Haitian standing next to her and wonders if it would be easier if he made her forget Claire Bennet altogether.
She is Claire Bennet, and she is not a Petrelli.
Angela is imposing despite her tiny frame, and Claire is unsure what to call her. Grandma? Grandmother? Mrs. Petrelli? She’s unsure, so she goes with the safe option-Angela. Nathan is easier. She can see the regret in his eyes, but sometimes she wonders if it’s aimed at her or at her timing. She calls him Nathan. He is not her dad. They are related by blood, but they aren’t family.
She’s too suburban for this family, this mansion, but Peter helps. He may be a Petrelli by blood, but he is an outsider. Just like her. Yet she dresses in nicer clothes, holds herself more rigid, minds which fork she uses at dinner and makes sure to keep her napkin on her lap and her elbows off the table. She is Texas and sunny days and football games and pink clothing. They are New York and money and class and whites, blacks, and grays. She trails behind Peter like a ghost when she can, hoping that if she can't fit in she can at least be around someone who she thinks she can let her shoulders slouch around and won't think less of her for not sitting with both feet on the floor.
Peter does not know that his brief, considerate smiles are saving Claire Bennet as much as he did during homecoming. She's suffocating here.
She is Claire Butler and she lives in Costa Verde.
Blonde hair helps her blend in, though it is not entirely seamless. She thinks people can see it-it’s in the way she smiles, walks, sits. West sees it. She’s different. Special. She was an alien that looked up at the sky every now and then, but she feels like a robot as she goes through the motions at school.
West is not Zach. Costa Verde High is not Union Wells. The captain of the cheer team is not Jackie. She is not Claire Bennet. Everyone is an actor filling in roles.
Claire sits on the sofa next to her brother and looks at him out of the corner her eye, opens her mouth-doesn’t this feel fake to you? I’m sorry. I hate this. I wish your life was more normal, too-but the words die in her throat and she says nothing.
Claire Butler sits and says nothing at all, thinking it’s better this way. Claire Bennet disagrees.
She is Claire Bennet, and she is following in her father’s footsteps.
She lies to her mother. She knows how to aim a gun, aim a taser, and she thinks she is invincible because as far as she’s concerned, she is. She may not be able to cut open heads or stop time or lift cars, but she can be beaten down and get back up. If anything, she is resilient-though it’s not a character trait as much as it is a biological trait.
Once, she held a gun in her hands and aimed it at her uncle, and she shook. She couldn’t stop shaking. She imagines that situation now. Eyes dark and narrowed, weapon held with confidence and calm. She wonders, now, if she would be able to kill a relative. She would never kill Peter (he would never do anything to deserve being murdered), but the other Petrelli pops into her mind. Nathan.
She wonders if she would be able to kill her father-her biological father-when he himself has killed so many.
Then again, so has her real father.
Claire decides to not think about it. There are people to find, to hide away, to make fake identities for.
She knows this is not Claire Bennet, but there’s nothing else she can do.
She is Bonnie Monaco, and she’s holding Claire Bennet in the past.
Part of her still can’t wrap her mind around it-the baby in her arms, giggling and smiling, is her. At this point, she’s unsure if her ability has manifested. She doesn’t want to know what would happen if she dropped herself on her head (not that she needed an excuse for any of her stupid mistakes), and she doesn’t know how she’s going to get back to the present.
But for the moment, it doesn’t matter.
She looks at the baby girl in front of her and sees so much potential. Claire wonders if she could somehow alter her path. Do something, whisper something into her ear that would stay for years and years and help her with the pain of being different, of feeling nothing at all, and losing everything. She wonders who Claire Bennet would be if she listened to her father and avoided homecoming, if she never met any of the Petrelli's, if she still lived in Odessa.
Ultimately, she decides to warn her about the little things. Boys in elementary school, mean girls. Claire has read enough fiction and seen enough movies to know that stepping on butterflies never leads to anything good.
She is Claire Bennet, and she has just murdered a man.
The glass had dug into her own palms as she jammed it into the back of Sylar’s head, but the marks are long gone and she hadn’t felt a thing. She killed a man-a monster, she tells herself, a murderer. Her father and Angela don’t look at her as Primatech burns like the fire her mother once held in her palms, the fire she used to train her, but she feels she should be burning, too. Meredith is dead, and Sylar is dead; she supposes the grief and the relief cancel each other out and she once again feels nothing.
Perhaps not nothing.
There is a tight feeling in her chest, and she can’t believe it’s over. Sylar is dead by her hand. But she had seen him die before, and there will be no body found in the ashes of the building. She’s unsure how that makes her feel. She is not sure if she’s a murderer.
She is Claire Bennet, and she is a college freshman.
Like all the people around her, she is stepping into something new and thrilling. Her hands clutch her box of belongings against her chest, small memories of Costa Verde and New York-teddy bears from her parents and a card from Nathan. Her tuition is the largest gift from New York, thanks to her grandmother.
College is a chance to reinvent herself. UUUGHGSIDGBUSDGSDG