Day 51: Lunch

[sanguinario]

Edward was glad to wake up to a period of respite. While he had been conscious during breakfast, he'd requested to remain in his room for extra "sleep", which had consisted waiting until the room was vacated to ingest the vial of Venom's blood. The vampire had lost his chance last night, but that might have been for the better; this way he wasn't

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[autophoenix]

Surprisingly, Claire had enjoyed arts and crafts. Enough to keep one of those marker-colored paper fortune tellers in the pocket of her sweatpants to tape up in her room later. Which … sure, was a little bit of a blow to her ego, but it was partially thanks to Elena, at least. She was nice, probably not crazy, and overall, Claire could imagine worse people to spend arts and crafts time getting to know. More than that, she seemed to have enough in common with Claire to make it a little less painful. It was surprisingly difficult to transition out of the comfort of the activity back into the mood where she'd be ready to deal with the institute again

[human_sponge]

Seeing Elle again had taken such a toll (emotionally, he hadn't been ready to see her again; even if he was glad that her death hadn't lasted, the implications of what Landel had done and the reliving of those memories had not been easy to bear) that Peter had decided to keep to himself for the second shift

[autophoenix]

Well, that was either a really good sign, or a really bad sign. Peter had practically beelined for her, which meant either something bad had happened, or she was just lucky that he wanted to hear how things had gone as much as she'd predicted he would. Her fingers were crossed for the latter -- even if it meant inadvertently encouraging his overprotective behavior. Given last night, she was pretty confident that she could take care of herself -- and Elle, even -- so allowing him to take care of her was more in her control. It was her giving him permission to be protective, it wasn't a necessity

[human_sponge]

It was small things, like the way Claire still glanced around to make sure none of the nurses were listening, that made it clear that she was still new to all of this. In all of his time here, Peter had never had a nurse take note of what he was discussing with someone. Granted, when it came to really important things, he still kept his tone down due to some weird instinct, but if they were just sharing the events of their nights with each other, then it wasn't the biggest deal

[autophoenix]

So, it had happened to Peter, too. Things he'd grabbed during the night just getting neatly tucked away in his room. It was that kind of thing that made Claire more inclined to think they really were just testing them for something. Now it was just a matter of, well, figuring out what they were testing. Their endurance? Their survival skills? Their desire to get the hell out of there? It didn't make sense. But, Claire knew it wasn't going to make sense until she got her hands on some real information, which none of these nurses were willingly giving. The best she had so far was Landel's super creepy messages over the intercom at night, and those were just vague enough to be totally useless

[human_sponge]

The look on her face, as if he'd just said something funny, took him by surprise. Peter didn't think anything he'd said had been particularly odd, but when his niece started talking about pregnancy, his mind almost shut down for a second. What was she...? Okay, maybe the phrasing had been a little weird, but that was no reason for her to start talking about that. Nathan did not need a grandchild, and Peter was perfectly capable of being mortified on his brother's behalf.

Except that the fact that he had to do that in Nathan's place just made his mood take a turn from disturbed to depressed. While he knew that his brother was relatively safe, that was in the context of thinking that he was Harrison Campbell, which was enough to drive Peter nuts all on its own.

Claire didn't really give him time to explain before she started explaining a bit more about Elle. Claire was clearly from pretty far into the future, then, if she had already known Elle for a while. She didn't look significantly older, though, so it couldn't be too far ahead

[autophoenix]

At first, taking Nathan to the hospital seemed the obvious answer. Even if she'd seen him since then, it hadn't been that long before that he'd been in New York keeping an eye on Nathan while Sylar …

Claire swallowed hard, looking down at her plate and lowering a fry that she'd been about to eat. Suddenly, she wasn't hungry anymore. At all. The more she thought on it though, the more she realized just how much had happened since then. And then, he said what would explain it all. The explosion. It felt like ages ago -- between their move to Costa Verde, the Company's pursuit and Sylar's … well. And Sylar, it seemed like it had been years when really, it was only a few months' time. Hard as she tried, Claire couldn't keep the shock out of her expression. For the first time, her voice raised a little.

"The explosion?!" Her voice dropped immediately as she noticed she'd hissed that a little too loudly. "Peter, that was --" She paused to tally, then shook her head. "That was months ago. I got grabbed right after I," watched

[human_sponge]

Oh no. With that sort of reaction, Peter could only assume that there was a whole lot he'd missed out on -- or rather, that he hadn't yet experienced. Good, bad, whatever it was, he was going to have to catch up, if Claire was willing to be the bearer of that news. There was probably a lot to tell, and he couldn't really blame her if she was worried about punching holes into the space-time continuum or whatever

[autophoenix]

Hiro Nakamura. She'd never met him, but she knew enough to have some idea of what that entailed, and she didn't like the idea of anyone with Hiro's powers being in control of this institute. It was hard to trust anyone with that power; she wasn't even sure she was comfortable with the idea of Hiro having it, let alone some super creepy doctor. Her expression became steadily more grim at this, though there was a kind of confusion that showed her lack of full understanding. Overall, Claire was a pretty smart girl, but when time and space got thrown in … she was pretty much useless.

It was the kind of thing that rather than discuss, she internalized. She'd figure it out on her own later, when she didn't have to take all the time she could to figure out what she could from Peter. All of that messy figuring out how much she could trust him, whether or not he was even the same Peter -- or maybe whether or not she could trust him more because of that -- it was compartmentalized. When she had some privacy later, she'd figure it out

[human_sponge]

The hardness in Claire's tone did shock him. Even if Elle was bad news, he wasn't used to hearing the girl talk about someone like that. He'd noticed it yesterday, too; she just seemed more severe than she should have been. Like she had been put through something terrible and was jaded as a result. But if he thought about it that way, wasn't that the case? She'd had her whole world turned upside down by a serial killer, an absent biological father, and an exploding uncle. This was partly his fault, and he only wished he knew what had made it worse

[autophoenix]

The focus on her dad actually got her to deflate some. When she wasn't spitting with rage over Sylar and Elle and the Company and … all of it, it was a lot easier to get through to her. It was a lot easier to let that mask drop away and get a shot at the real, scared, hurt Claire Bennet. Because, that was the fact of the matter. No matter how angry she was with Noah, it came down to how he'd hurt her, and it showed in her bitter, vulnerably evasive gaze.

"He's fine," she muttered, shaking her head and breathing a sigh with her words. "They … gave him some of my blood." And now he was working for the Company and using her as a scapegoat and partnered with Sylar of all people

[human_sponge]

So it was back to her blood again. While Peter was glad that Claire had been able to make sure that her father didn't die for good, he couldn't begin to imagine how traumatizing it had been for her to witness. He knew how scared he'd been when he'd held his brother's charred, limp body in his arms and rushed into that hospital, for one thing. Even though he'd been assured that Nathan had made it through all of that okay, the memory was still jarring

[autophoenix]

As much as she hated to admit it and as much as she wanted to argue and scream and throw a tantrum, she had to concede that she wouldn't be able to watch Elle die, either. If she had the chance, if she was the only one who could help … She sighed in a way that indicated her concession and just went back to her food for a minute, looking very unhappy.

Leave it to Peter to be the hero and make her feel bad for all of her grudge-holding. For all the heroics she'd tried to pull lately, he was still the better of the two of them at it. It was a work in progress, though, and she'd get there. She just needed to listen to Peter, let him help, and help where she could. He was just about the only one who got that kind of high opinion with Claire anymore.

"So, we'll keep her from trying to get revenge. Hopefully she's not stupid enough to go for that anyway." Well. That wasn't giving herself very much credit, considering she planned to do the exact same thing. There was a thoughtful pause, and she gave a kind of masked smirk and an

[human_sponge]

While Peter didn't necessarily approve of the way Claire phrased it, he did agree: he was crossing his fingers that Elle had learned her lesson about Sylar and didn't have some crazy idea in her head that this time, she would win. It didn't work that way with Sylar. There was a reason that he had killed who knew how many people; his track record kind of spoke for itself. Peter knew that hadn't stopped him from tracking the man down, and he'd died for his efforts. But with Claire here now, he had to worry even less

[autophoenix]

It took a lot of self restraint for Claire not to push the Elle issue. To be petulant and demanding and selfish. But, she managed to let it die with a lot of help from her french fries, because every time she dared open her mouth to challenge it, she took the opportunity to stuff a french fry in and let Peter keep talking instead. Things were better that way for everyone involved. With any luck, she'd just be able to avoid Elle until they found a way out.

The translation trouble was something Stefan had mentioned earlier but not something Claire had given much thought to yet. She was a little surprised Peter even bothered mentioning it; didn't he have more experience with Hiro Nakamura than her? He should be used to that kind of thing by now. But, then she realized the oddest part of his statement. Stopped being able to understand. The realization washed over her in a slow wave and she dropped a fry back to her plate, sitting back some, considering

[human_sponge]

Watching Claire pack down those fries just reminded Peter that he had his own meal to focus on. Getting into the whole issue with Elle had pretty much distracted him from eating, but now he picked up his burger and took another bite, wishing that he hadn't let it get cold. The fries would probably taste even worse, unless he drowned them in ketchup