The Watch & the Wind Chime
Title: The Watch & the Wind Chime
Fandom: Heroes
Rating/Genre: g/gen
Characters: Claire & Lyle Bennet, the Haitian, original characters, and Sandra Bennet
Summary: Something happens to Lyle, and Claire sees the opportunity to be a hero… with a little help.
Word count: 2 141
Spoilers/Warnings: No.
Notes: Based on a true story, believe it or not. ;)
Lyle came home late from school that day, and he was visibly in a lousy mood. He barely looked up to say hello to his mother, and he only grunted when Mr. Muggles jumped excitedly around his feet.
“You silly dog”, he hissed, not loud enough for Sandra to hear, “get out of my way!”
“It’s late”, Sandra observed, “where have you been all day?”
“Nowhere.”
“That’s an interesting place to be”, his mom smiled, “hope you did some homework there, too. But I guess you were doing ‘nothing’, huh? Anyway, dinner’s ready soon, stay away from the TV.”
“Whatever”, Lyle sounded bored, and dragged himself and his school bag up the stairs to his room.
Sandra gave him a long look, and then she turned to his older sister.
“What’s the matter with him today? I’ll say no more or I’ll just make it worse. Claire, why don’t you go up there and talk to him, you can find out if there’s something wrong or if it’s just teenage angst…”
“I can try…”
Claire and Lyle were usually just bickering, arguing or ignoring each other these days, but on some occasions - like Christmas, Mother’s Day or some odd late winter’s night or early spring day - they got along just fine, just like when they were children. Maybe, Claire thought, this will be one of the times when Lyle will feel that he can actually talk to his big sister…
“Hey, it’s just me… Can I come in?”
Claire knocked at Lyle’s bedroom door, and as she interpreted the grunt she heard from inside as permission to enter, she opened the door and found her brother stretched out on the bed.
When she closed the door behind her, he sat up and looked at her and said, without being asked first, that he had a problem and he didn’t know what to do about it.
“Tell me about it”, Claire said. “Maybe I can help. Or help you think of a way to make it better.”
“Remember my watch”, he said, “the one dad gave me? Someone stole it in school today.”
“Oh no”, Claire exclaimed, knowing what that watch meant to her brother. Their dad had given it to him on his birthday two years ago; a very expensive, exclusive watch. Lyle hadn’t known what to think of it first, because normally if he needed to know what time it was, he just checked it on his cell phone, but Noah said that the watch was very durable, waterproof, and ‘Every man needs a real, proper watch!’ To that, Sandra had commented that their son hardly was a man yet, but Noah just smiled and said: ‘But he will be one day!’
That had made Lyle make up his mind about the gift. He wouldn’t have thought that he needed a watch, and he knew that his dad not always was up to date when it came to cool stuff, but sometimes, Lyle got the feeling that there was some kind of truth in what dad said after all.
He almost always wore that watch, and he treasured it; perhaps mostly because he realized that the gift meant something to his dad.
And now he lost it.
“But”, Claire said, “I’m sure it’s insured? If you tell mom…”
“No!” Lyle cut her off forcefully. “That’s exactly what I can’t do. Don’t you get it? She’ll be so pissed off and try to fix this, but she will only make it worse. She’ll call the school and this jerk’s parents, and he would deny everything and he would get away with it because his parents don’t give a shit… they’re not like mom and dad, Claire; they probably steal things, too…”
“Are you sure?” To Claire, that sounded pretty harsh, to just accuse people like that.
“Yeah, well, it’s not unlikely, everybody knows that… And anyway, my life in school would be living hell after that. Mom can’t do anything, dad could maybe help, but he’s not here, as usual…”
“I know”, Claire nodded, “I hate that he’s away so much…”
“I’m so not going to work at Primatech when I grow up”, Lyle agreed. “I’m going to run my own business so I can be my own boss and work from home most of the time, so I can be there for my kids.”
Brother and sister looked at each other in mutual understanding of each other’s feelings, the way only siblings can share the same thoughts about their parents.
“Anyway, I hate that I’ll have to tell him I lost it, and I’ll never get it back, because it’s not like this guy wants it, he’s obviously going to sell it…”
Claire thought about if for a moment. This was serious, and they should tell their parents… On the other hand, Lyle had told her because he trusted her, and it wasn’t that often she got a chance to be the protective older sister. She liked it; she was a tigress, not a baby bear.
“Don’t worry”, she smiled, “I’ll think of something. You’re sure that you know who he is?”
“Yeah, but I can’t prove it. What can you do?”
Lyle didn’t seem to believe in the tiger-powers of his sister, but Claire was going to prove him wrong.
“Tell me who this guy is”, she said, “and where he lives, and I’ll get your watch back.”
Lyle looked alarmed.
“What are you going to do? Don’t… just don’t do anything stupid, Claire…”
“Don’t worry”, she repeated and couldn’t resist ruffling his hair, “I have a plan. I’m not going to fight him or anything. Come on, dinner’s ready.”
***
It is true that Claire’s first thought had been to fight the thief, because if she really was indestructible - after all, she had been running through fire and she had been doing all sorts of weird things lately - then she could finally use it for something. The guy would be seriously freaked out if he found out that she couldn’t get hurt, and maybe being a freak would be worth it if she could help her brother?
But then she changed her mind. She supposed that her little… ‘thing’ would be scary and impressive, but firstly she wasn’t sure if she would be able to break out of some kind of trap, and secondly, she really didn’t want anybody to know.
But then she remembered this guy, the memory-wiping black guy, who said that he was going to come if she needed him. And this was an emergency, wasn’t it?
After hanging her wind chime in the window, she went to the old refinery where she had jumped from the platform, and yes, he was there, and she told him that she needed his company on an important errand she had to run for her brother.
At first he got angry and told her that she shouldn’t call for him for every little thing she needed help with.
“But it’s important to my brother!” She looked pleadingly into the man’s eyes. “I have to go to a neighbourhood that’s not safe for a lonely girl after dark, not even for a girl and her mother. Even if I can’t get hurt, bad things can still happen to me, you know… I would ask my dad, but he’s not here.”
Claire looked at the man and couldn’t guess what he was thinking. She needed him for her plan to work. She hoped that she was right to believe that he liked her a little, and that maybe he felt that he was responsible for her because of his old friendship with her father.
Finally, he nodded in agreement, and with a bright smile, Claire took him to the address Lyle had given her.
It was dark, and some of the street lights were broken. Very few people were out. All of that suited Claire just fine.
She stopped under a tree and pointed to an apartment house.
“See that third window from the right on the fourth floor?” She looked at her follower, who nodded. “That’s where I’ll be. It will only take a few minutes, you can wait here. If I need you, I’ll just call you from the window. Okay?”
The man scrutinized her.
“Claire, I don’t know about this… All right, but if you’re not back down here after five minutes…”
“Don’t worry.” Claire smiled confidently. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
Claire walked into the apartment house and took the elevator up to the fourth floor.
She could hear the sound of a TV with the volume turned up very high, and someone screaming Mom, there’s someone at the door!
A blonde woman opened, slim with lots of makeup on, smoking a cigarette.
“No thanks, we’re not interested.”
She tried to close the door, but Claire was quicker and pushed her way past the woman and went into the apartment.
“I’m not here to sell anything”, she said, “I’m here to get something back.”
She followed the sound of the TV into the living room, where a plump teenager was slouching on the couch.
“Turn it off”, she said. It didn’t seem like he heard or even saw her.
“Bill”, screamed the woman, and made the kid look away from the TV, “who is this chick? A friend of yours? Turn that thing off!”
Bill obeyed his mother reluctantly, and looked at Claire with surprise written all over his face.
“Who are you? Are you Steve’s, um… friend?” He grinned. “You look a lot better than what he…”
“I’m not Steve’s friend”, Claire snapped, “I’m here because you have something that belong to my brother, and I want it back now.”
The blonde woman gasped.
“Bill, that’s not true, is it?!”
“No”, Bill replied, and stared at Claire. “I don’t know what she’s talking about. I’ve never seen her before.”
“It doesn’t matter”, Claire said, “because all I care about is that you give me the watch you stole from my brother Lyle this morning.”
“I don’t know anything about it”, the boy said, and Claire could see that he was one of those guys who liked to bully younger kids, who got other people to run errands and write his papers for him, the kind of guy who could steal things and get away with it because the others were afraid of him.
“Get out of here”, the mother said, “he says he doesn’t know anything. You’ve got the wrong person, so get out before I…”
“No”, Claire said, “listen to me - I didn’t want to say this first, because you” - she looked sharply at the boy - “are too young to be in trouble with justice, but it’s up to you. Either you give me that watch right now, and you keep your fingers to yourself from now on… or if you prefer, I’ll call the detective waiting down there, and we’ll discuss this at the police station.”
“You can’t do that”, the kid sniffed, “and even if you could, I think you’re bluffing. There’s no detective.”
“Really?” Claire walked up to the window. “So who’s that?”
The boy and his mother looked over Claire’s shoulder, and they could all see the silhouette of a man on the other side of the street. He raised his hand and waved a little.
“That”, Claire said, “is the detective I was referring to. He’s a friend of my dad. He’ll leave you alone if I tell him to.”
The boy looked at Claire again when he said, a little more hesitatingly:
“But you’ve got no proof I did it, and you don’t have the right to…”
“It doesn’t matter”, the mother cut him off, “I don’t care who that man is, but I don’t want to have him in here, and I don’t want to have him following you around. Give the girl what she wants.”
“But mom!”
“Do it”, Bill’s mother gave her son a deadly glare. “And I’ll teach your father about passing on his little tricks to you!”
“I don’t believe this”, Bill complained, “not even my own mother’s on my side…”
But he did a he was told; he disappeared into his room, and came out again with the watch, and gave it reluctantly to Claire, who snatched it from his hand.
“Thank you very much”, she said, and gave them both a flashing cheerleader smile. “Remember, Bill, that I can call my dad’s friend any time.”
She hurried out of the house, almost dancing with joy.
“I’m done”, she said to the Haitian, “thanks a lot - it means a lot to me having you here.”
“Claire”, he said and made her look at him, “I’m not sure I like this. Don’t do this again, okay?”
“It won’t happen again, I promise.”
She felt the weight of her brother’s precious watch in her pocket. They were lucky Bill hadn’t had time to pass it on and turn it into money yet. She was sure that Lyle was going to be more careful in the future.
.
Fandom: Heroes
Rating/Genre: g/gen
Characters: Claire & Lyle Bennet, the Haitian, original characters, and Sandra Bennet
Summary: Something happens to Lyle, and Claire sees the opportunity to be a hero… with a little help.
Word count: 2 141
Spoilers/Warnings: No.
Notes: Based on a true story, believe it or not. ;)
Lyle came home late from school that day, and he was visibly in a lousy mood. He barely looked up to say hello to his mother, and he only grunted when Mr. Muggles jumped excitedly around his feet.
“You silly dog”, he hissed, not loud enough for Sandra to hear, “get out of my way!”
“It’s late”, Sandra observed, “where have you been all day?”
“Nowhere.”
“That’s an interesting place to be”, his mom smiled, “hope you did some homework there, too. But I guess you were doing ‘nothing’, huh? Anyway, dinner’s ready soon, stay away from the TV.”
“Whatever”, Lyle sounded bored, and dragged himself and his school bag up the stairs to his room.
Sandra gave him a long look, and then she turned to his older sister.
“What’s the matter with him today? I’ll say no more or I’ll just make it worse. Claire, why don’t you go up there and talk to him, you can find out if there’s something wrong or if it’s just teenage angst…”
“I can try…”
Claire and Lyle were usually just bickering, arguing or ignoring each other these days, but on some occasions - like Christmas, Mother’s Day or some odd late winter’s night or early spring day - they got along just fine, just like when they were children. Maybe, Claire thought, this will be one of the times when Lyle will feel that he can actually talk to his big sister…
“Hey, it’s just me… Can I come in?”
Claire knocked at Lyle’s bedroom door, and as she interpreted the grunt she heard from inside as permission to enter, she opened the door and found her brother stretched out on the bed.
When she closed the door behind her, he sat up and looked at her and said, without being asked first, that he had a problem and he didn’t know what to do about it.
“Tell me about it”, Claire said. “Maybe I can help. Or help you think of a way to make it better.”
“Remember my watch”, he said, “the one dad gave me? Someone stole it in school today.”
“Oh no”, Claire exclaimed, knowing what that watch meant to her brother. Their dad had given it to him on his birthday two years ago; a very expensive, exclusive watch. Lyle hadn’t known what to think of it first, because normally if he needed to know what time it was, he just checked it on his cell phone, but Noah said that the watch was very durable, waterproof, and ‘Every man needs a real, proper watch!’ To that, Sandra had commented that their son hardly was a man yet, but Noah just smiled and said: ‘But he will be one day!’
That had made Lyle make up his mind about the gift. He wouldn’t have thought that he needed a watch, and he knew that his dad not always was up to date when it came to cool stuff, but sometimes, Lyle got the feeling that there was some kind of truth in what dad said after all.
He almost always wore that watch, and he treasured it; perhaps mostly because he realized that the gift meant something to his dad.
And now he lost it.
“But”, Claire said, “I’m sure it’s insured? If you tell mom…”
“No!” Lyle cut her off forcefully. “That’s exactly what I can’t do. Don’t you get it? She’ll be so pissed off and try to fix this, but she will only make it worse. She’ll call the school and this jerk’s parents, and he would deny everything and he would get away with it because his parents don’t give a shit… they’re not like mom and dad, Claire; they probably steal things, too…”
“Are you sure?” To Claire, that sounded pretty harsh, to just accuse people like that.
“Yeah, well, it’s not unlikely, everybody knows that… And anyway, my life in school would be living hell after that. Mom can’t do anything, dad could maybe help, but he’s not here, as usual…”
“I know”, Claire nodded, “I hate that he’s away so much…”
“I’m so not going to work at Primatech when I grow up”, Lyle agreed. “I’m going to run my own business so I can be my own boss and work from home most of the time, so I can be there for my kids.”
Brother and sister looked at each other in mutual understanding of each other’s feelings, the way only siblings can share the same thoughts about their parents.
“Anyway, I hate that I’ll have to tell him I lost it, and I’ll never get it back, because it’s not like this guy wants it, he’s obviously going to sell it…”
Claire thought about if for a moment. This was serious, and they should tell their parents… On the other hand, Lyle had told her because he trusted her, and it wasn’t that often she got a chance to be the protective older sister. She liked it; she was a tigress, not a baby bear.
“Don’t worry”, she smiled, “I’ll think of something. You’re sure that you know who he is?”
“Yeah, but I can’t prove it. What can you do?”
Lyle didn’t seem to believe in the tiger-powers of his sister, but Claire was going to prove him wrong.
“Tell me who this guy is”, she said, “and where he lives, and I’ll get your watch back.”
Lyle looked alarmed.
“What are you going to do? Don’t… just don’t do anything stupid, Claire…”
“Don’t worry”, she repeated and couldn’t resist ruffling his hair, “I have a plan. I’m not going to fight him or anything. Come on, dinner’s ready.”
***
It is true that Claire’s first thought had been to fight the thief, because if she really was indestructible - after all, she had been running through fire and she had been doing all sorts of weird things lately - then she could finally use it for something. The guy would be seriously freaked out if he found out that she couldn’t get hurt, and maybe being a freak would be worth it if she could help her brother?
But then she changed her mind. She supposed that her little… ‘thing’ would be scary and impressive, but firstly she wasn’t sure if she would be able to break out of some kind of trap, and secondly, she really didn’t want anybody to know.
But then she remembered this guy, the memory-wiping black guy, who said that he was going to come if she needed him. And this was an emergency, wasn’t it?
After hanging her wind chime in the window, she went to the old refinery where she had jumped from the platform, and yes, he was there, and she told him that she needed his company on an important errand she had to run for her brother.
At first he got angry and told her that she shouldn’t call for him for every little thing she needed help with.
“But it’s important to my brother!” She looked pleadingly into the man’s eyes. “I have to go to a neighbourhood that’s not safe for a lonely girl after dark, not even for a girl and her mother. Even if I can’t get hurt, bad things can still happen to me, you know… I would ask my dad, but he’s not here.”
Claire looked at the man and couldn’t guess what he was thinking. She needed him for her plan to work. She hoped that she was right to believe that he liked her a little, and that maybe he felt that he was responsible for her because of his old friendship with her father.
Finally, he nodded in agreement, and with a bright smile, Claire took him to the address Lyle had given her.
It was dark, and some of the street lights were broken. Very few people were out. All of that suited Claire just fine.
She stopped under a tree and pointed to an apartment house.
“See that third window from the right on the fourth floor?” She looked at her follower, who nodded. “That’s where I’ll be. It will only take a few minutes, you can wait here. If I need you, I’ll just call you from the window. Okay?”
The man scrutinized her.
“Claire, I don’t know about this… All right, but if you’re not back down here after five minutes…”
“Don’t worry.” Claire smiled confidently. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
Claire walked into the apartment house and took the elevator up to the fourth floor.
She could hear the sound of a TV with the volume turned up very high, and someone screaming Mom, there’s someone at the door!
A blonde woman opened, slim with lots of makeup on, smoking a cigarette.
“No thanks, we’re not interested.”
She tried to close the door, but Claire was quicker and pushed her way past the woman and went into the apartment.
“I’m not here to sell anything”, she said, “I’m here to get something back.”
She followed the sound of the TV into the living room, where a plump teenager was slouching on the couch.
“Turn it off”, she said. It didn’t seem like he heard or even saw her.
“Bill”, screamed the woman, and made the kid look away from the TV, “who is this chick? A friend of yours? Turn that thing off!”
Bill obeyed his mother reluctantly, and looked at Claire with surprise written all over his face.
“Who are you? Are you Steve’s, um… friend?” He grinned. “You look a lot better than what he…”
“I’m not Steve’s friend”, Claire snapped, “I’m here because you have something that belong to my brother, and I want it back now.”
The blonde woman gasped.
“Bill, that’s not true, is it?!”
“No”, Bill replied, and stared at Claire. “I don’t know what she’s talking about. I’ve never seen her before.”
“It doesn’t matter”, Claire said, “because all I care about is that you give me the watch you stole from my brother Lyle this morning.”
“I don’t know anything about it”, the boy said, and Claire could see that he was one of those guys who liked to bully younger kids, who got other people to run errands and write his papers for him, the kind of guy who could steal things and get away with it because the others were afraid of him.
“Get out of here”, the mother said, “he says he doesn’t know anything. You’ve got the wrong person, so get out before I…”
“No”, Claire said, “listen to me - I didn’t want to say this first, because you” - she looked sharply at the boy - “are too young to be in trouble with justice, but it’s up to you. Either you give me that watch right now, and you keep your fingers to yourself from now on… or if you prefer, I’ll call the detective waiting down there, and we’ll discuss this at the police station.”
“You can’t do that”, the kid sniffed, “and even if you could, I think you’re bluffing. There’s no detective.”
“Really?” Claire walked up to the window. “So who’s that?”
The boy and his mother looked over Claire’s shoulder, and they could all see the silhouette of a man on the other side of the street. He raised his hand and waved a little.
“That”, Claire said, “is the detective I was referring to. He’s a friend of my dad. He’ll leave you alone if I tell him to.”
The boy looked at Claire again when he said, a little more hesitatingly:
“But you’ve got no proof I did it, and you don’t have the right to…”
“It doesn’t matter”, the mother cut him off, “I don’t care who that man is, but I don’t want to have him in here, and I don’t want to have him following you around. Give the girl what she wants.”
“But mom!”
“Do it”, Bill’s mother gave her son a deadly glare. “And I’ll teach your father about passing on his little tricks to you!”
“I don’t believe this”, Bill complained, “not even my own mother’s on my side…”
But he did a he was told; he disappeared into his room, and came out again with the watch, and gave it reluctantly to Claire, who snatched it from his hand.
“Thank you very much”, she said, and gave them both a flashing cheerleader smile. “Remember, Bill, that I can call my dad’s friend any time.”
She hurried out of the house, almost dancing with joy.
“I’m done”, she said to the Haitian, “thanks a lot - it means a lot to me having you here.”
“Claire”, he said and made her look at him, “I’m not sure I like this. Don’t do this again, okay?”
“It won’t happen again, I promise.”
She felt the weight of her brother’s precious watch in her pocket. They were lucky Bill hadn’t had time to pass it on and turn it into money yet. She was sure that Lyle was going to be more careful in the future.
.