regenerated | and then she'd say, 'it's okay, i got lost on the way, but i'm a supergirl and supergirls don't cry'

Up until now, everything's been easy. As strange as it might be for most people to imagine, Claire Bennet's leap off the Compound has been the best thing that's happened to her yet on Tabula Rasa. Maybe it isn't the healthiest— after all, where the leap from the Compound was supposed to help her shed that mask, come face to face with all that fate's laid on her, now it's only granted a wish that she's held tightly to for months. All of a sudden, it's the lies that have become truth. She no longer has to think about the ideas her mind's brushed over in past months, wondering if invincibility comes with everlasting life, if wrinkles will never make it to her face, caused by smiles or frowns. The prospect itself is still one that chills her to the bone, lingering in the shadows of her thought, Claire realizing better than anyone else that there will come a day when she returns to the United States, when being a cheerleader is no longer an option, when her dad will come and take her into his arms, family man that he is. She'll have to search for Peter, for Nathan, for anything remaining of the two of them. But for now, one choice has been switched for another, and it feels pretty good.

She's probably driven the people at the clinic mad. Claire keeps on trying to pull off her bandages, keeps on running gentle hands over her injuries, relishing the way that the pain is different each time. This process is healing. Not reversing, not erasing all trace of what's happened, but instead an imperfect process that leaves her slightly fractured, slightly weak, all of the things that a girl her age is supposed to be. The bruises that she sees all over her skin might be about the most beautiful thing she's seen and felt in a long time, her eyes wide with amazement at the human body, that imperfect state of being and how it adapts. It's almost hard to keep the lie in place, with the way her lips spread into a smile at the slightest provocation, how laughs catch in her throat now because her lung hasn't healed enough to be used at full force.

But she can't hide on her own forever. Can't use fatigue as an excuse when all the doctors can see that her eyes are practically dancing. It's time for visiting hours. This is what she's been dreading.

Because somehow, she doesn't think that most people will believe her if she tells them this is the happiest she's been in almost a year. And honestly, she's not even sure if she should.

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"I— I know, I was stupid, I get that, okay?" Claire replied in turn, her voice strained as she tried to keep the volume down, even though she felt a familiar burning sensation at the corners of her eyes. Everything was so clear in retrospect, the logical fallacies she'd run through, the sense that she'd lacked, all in the name of trying to figure out... what, exactly? Who she was? What she was?

Or was it just trying to run back to the feeling of control she'd finally achieved back in Kirby Plaza?

Shaking her head, Claire took a shuddering breath, laying back against her pillows, heavily, her breath coming out in a hiss through her teeth. "My uncle and my biological father, I don't know if they survive, back home. I watched both of them shoot up into the sky, I saw an explosion with my own eyes, and that's when I showed up here. My trip home, I thought I could change it, but it was the same colors spilling over the sky. And still no answers."

"It's not just being stupid, Claire," he said. Although Edmund was glad that she seemed to understand now the error of her ways, he did not want her to walk away from this incident with simply that in mind. Edmund had walked out of the White Witch's clutches with an awareness of how stupid he had been, but so much more as well. "That helpless feeling? That terror and loneliness you felt watching your family disappear? That's what you've brought down on all your friends here. Not because you were stupid but because you didn't trust us enough to help or to even say anything.

"We're not meant to know all the answers, Claire," Edmund said. His tone had cooled now, from sympathy and from his own weariness. He didn't have it in his heart to be angry for long; it was fear that fueled that anger, and talking to Claire, having her whole though bruised beside him eased that. "No more here than at home. We only think we know more at home because we're used to it. But you can't see it all on your own. You need other people if you want to try to figure anything out. I'm sorry you don't know what happened to your family, Claire, and I'm sorry you couldn't do anything to change it. But going about figuring it out on your own is only going to lead to this," he said, looking pointedly down at the hospital bed.

Every last word was fair. More importantly, ever last word Edmund said was true. Falling from the Compound was far from merely an act of stupidity or oversight, it bled right into a selfishness and self-centered mentality, one that all people had to some degree, but with an added level of carelessness that seemed so unforgivable in retrospect. Claire took a deep breath, feeling it shake, a pain driving into her ribs, and it was enough for the tears to spill over again, the blonde helpless to stop it all. The best she could do was to raise her free hand to block her face from view.

She wasn't trying for forgiveness, or pity, or to pull at the sympathy that Edmund could surely provide her.

"I won't— I won't do it ag— gain," she breathed, trying for deep gulps of air as she simply shook her head, tiredly, unable to quite piece all of her thoughts together. "I jus' wanna move on. I just..." Her head fell back against the pillow as Claire continued to shake her head from side to side, as though the movement alone could clear the air.

"Don't, don't," Edmund said, unconsciously echoing his own orders from earlier, to not move so, to keep calm. He couldn't see her face for her hand, but he cupped her cheek despite it. The tears felt damp under his palm, giving him a pained expression, but he tried to calm and steady her.

"I didn't mean to get you this upset, Claire. I'm sorry," he said, his voice all gentleness and concern now. He didn't regret a single word, but perhaps he should have waited to say them. Too late to take it back now; he could only stay by Claire through the aftermath. "Just breath. Don't talk. It's alright."

She didn't try to speak as Edmund cupped her hand in his palm, too overwhelmed with a fresh slew of emotions. Gratitude, fear, shame, everything mixing together in a way that only left her feel like she was drowning, somehow, no way to get a breath of air, and as it wasn't the first time in the past few months she'd felt that way, Claire knew that the best thing to do was just to ride it out until she felt a little more functional.

"God, it's not your fault," she finally managed in a soft murmur, shaking her head as he apologized. "It's really... just that there's so much going on, and I know I brought it on myself, but. I don't—"

Feeling her breath start to grow thin again, she shook her head, pausing for a few seconds before adding, "Thanks."

and then she'd say, 'it's okay, i got lost on the way, but i'm a supergirl and supergirls don't cry'

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