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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Her eyes lingered on Hiccup for a while before Claire broke out into a wide smile. There was just something about the Viking, something about his carefree attitude that Claire couldn't help but enjoy, having strayed so far from that herself. Anything and anyone that could make her relax a bit those days, save for pot or drink, was something that Claire welcomed into her life, even if she wasn't sure that she quite deserved it. That level of acceptance.

Grinning, her gaze fell down to her sheets briefly before she looked back up with an arched brow. "Well, I mean, with visitors awesome enough to keep me in good spirits, I'm definitely sure that it'll be no time at all. Plus, the food that they serve to people in the clinic? Amazing. Back where I lived in my world, hospitals didn't exactly have the time to cater to everything that their patients wanted. Sometimes things tasted pretty gross."

Not quite carefree, Hiccup would have said. Unwilling to be burdened was closer, but either way he could return her wide smile as he pulled over a chair to sit so he could stay a while. "So far, everything I've had here is an improvement over Berk. We're not exactly an epicurean paradise."

He leaned back in his chair and tried to remember what they'd had, grinning ruefully. "We had our choices of short, scrubby greens. Or meat. Smoked meat. Grilled meat. Meat in a bag..."

"Well, I come from Texas, which... is pretty big on meat," Claire had to admit, raising a brow with a smile. "Beef was pretty big on the house, and we're all big fans of chicken when it's not overdone, but no pastries to come after the meat, and I'd be totally dead." With how many cupcakes she'd been baking before the Compound leap, Claire wondered how many more dozens she'd make until she healed enough to go traipsing around the island again.

"Croissants, pies, cupcakes— even just baking them's a whole lot better than nothing," she grinned. "So I guess having the bakery around is a definite plus."

"We had fish and sheep mostly, or whatever was in the woods," Hiccup explained, trying to figure out what kind of animal a 'beef' was. "And I like the boar they have here."

Her mention of sweets put a sheepish look on his face and he rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand, "Never had sweets before we came here though. Not sugar or cake or, uh, chocolate, I mean."

"Sheep is good! I always like a good lamb chop, like when they take a chop of the meat and fry it lightly over oil? The meat really seems to have a unique flavor to it, also really great in stew and with a piece of soda bread. Or maybe that's just the potential Irish in my mixed background speaking," she grinned, before her brows furrowed, hands waving about dismissively. "God, I'm sorry, that... probably doesn't mean much to you either. Maybe someday I should find a general world history book so that you have some idea of what I mean."

Sitting up again and pushing her covers away slightly, Claire grinned. "As for sweets, oh god, just make sure you're careful with them. It's so easy to overeat sugary things and make yourself totally sick in the process."

The way they ate sheep usually meant killing off one of the grazers, when the meat was old, flavorful, but a bit tough. It also usually meant a lot of slow-roasting over an open fire. Recently, someone had gotten clever and figured out how to render salt out of the water and that had been an improvement but...Berk was Berk. "Yeah, when we had it, we'd roast a couple of them whole for the village."

His smile grew distinctly more sheepish at the mention of overeating. "Yeah, we found that out on Valentine's Day. You, uh, you know how dogs and cats can't eat chocolate? Apparently neither can a dragon..."

Claire's brows furrowed immediately upon hearing about Toothless' experience with the chocolate, face pulling into a grimace. She could only imagine how much grief Mr. Muggles would have given her if he ever buried his face into a box of Godivas; fortunately, her mother had always been careful about keeping sweets puppy-safe around the house. Licking her lower lip, she laughed lightly, casting the dragon a sympathetic gaze.

"Yeeeah, I'm guessing there are a lot of sweets that would be off-limits for him. Maybe next time, you can look and see if the bookshelf will give you advice? Or see the island's vet, Doctor... Magnus, I think."

At the mention of Helen, Hiccup nodded. "Yeah, she was a lifesaver. She was the one who taught me about that kind of stuff and then she helped me watch over him while he got better."

And good thing too. Hiccup was a lot of firsts; first Viking who wouldn't kill a dragon; first Viking to ride a dragon. Adding 'first Viking to kill a dragon via accidental food poisoning' seemed like kind of a step down.

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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