regenerated | but the sun does shine in this place some days

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cissie king-jones

but the sun does shine in this place some days

It's been several weeks now since Claire first stumbled around to the island, and in some strange way, it's all starting to feel like a home. Claire's not really sure what it is. The people, perhaps, kinder and more accepting than any high schoolers back in Odessa had really been— which isn't something that she's bitter about anymore, looking at it in retrospect. High schoolers are supposed to be growing up, and they're bound to be dumb and make mistakes, convinced that they've seen it all when their world views are more often narrow than not. Of course, Tabula Rasa still lacks so many of the things that really make a house a home, like a room that Claire can decorate to her satisfaction, a mountain of teddy bears piled on her bed. And of course, her family isn't there, perhaps the biggest detail that leaves Claire scrambling for purchase on her sheets every morning. But sometimes, the island can be home, and maybe that's enough.

The kitchen is probably where Claire finds that calm the most, a place she visits every day to find a hot meal and to help clean up afterward, the least she can do in return for finding a sense of community that appeals to her. Every now and again, she finds the energy to bake a large batch of cupcakes, her own way of giving back to the kitchen all that she takes from it. Besides, there isn't all that much else for her to do these days, between not having classes and not having to really prepare her own meals at all. There's an idle desire to find a job that always simmers in the back of Claire's mind, but until she manages to find that, baking will just have to do.

She's right in the middle of mixing the batter when someone steps into the kitchen, a face vaguely familiar from the recent newbie mixer. Keeping her arm firmly clamped around the bowl so as not to drop it, Claire smiles in greeting, tilting her head in lieu of a wave.

"Hey there," she grins. "You wouldn't happen to like cupcakes, would you?"

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"Ooh, cupcakes!" Cissie answered, beaming widely at the girl. She knew she had seen her around before, but her name was escaping her at the moment. She was one of Kon's friends, she thought, which made her both like her automatically and also wonder if she needed to give her the 'It's okay to punch him, he deserves it, really' speech.

"I was just coming here to get something to drink, but cupcakes sound so much better. What kind are you making?"

There was something bubbly to the girl's behavior, bubbly but genuine, the type of ease that all cheerleaders hoped to carry themselves with but always lost over time, conniving as they were and competitive even among their close groups of friends. Claire breathed easily as she motioned for the other girl to come closer, before continuing to mix the start of the batter in her bowl, trying to do away with any lumps.

"The good thing about drinks and cupcakes is that they're not actually mutually exclusive," Claire laughed. "But I actually haven't decided what kind of cupcakes to make yet. I mean, I probably should hold off on chocolate, unfortunately, since there's so little of it on the island, but... I was thinking of experimenting with fruit. Maybe orange meringue cupcakes?"

"Oh, don't even mention chocolate," Cissie pleaded as she leaned against the counter, trying to ignore the sudden craving for a nice milk-chocolate bar. "I just get depressed every time I remember it's scarce here. Orange meringue sounds like a good second best choice, if you ask me."

She watched her mix for a little bit. "I'm Cissie, by the way. Do you want some help? I can mix or get some more ingredients... anything else usually involves burning and smoke alarms going off."

"I hear that Santa Claus makes his way around here every year and like... drops gifts off for the islanders," Claire pointed out with a raise of her brow, gaze briefly dropping to her ankles to check if a certain puffball of a dog had made his way around yet— for the moment, he seemed absent. "Maybe we just need more people putting chocolate on their wishlists. I mean, I'm not sure how it gets from cocoa beans to Hershey's bars, but I'm sure that one of the many geniuses we have on this island probably knows how to manage that."

Pausing to offer a hand for a brief shake, Claire grinned. "Hey, Cissie. I'm Claire, and ah... sure, actually, if you could look through the fridge and see if we've got oranges somewhere? I'll be working on this completely from memory, so I'm not so sure I won't end up screwing it up either, but we can hope." After a pause, she added, "You're... one of Kon's friends, right? I remember seeing you at the mixer."

Cissie shook Claire's hand firmly, careful not to dislodge the bowl she was carrying. It would be a tragedy of intense proportions if the bowl of soon-to-be cupcake goodness were to break, after all. Or, well, if not exactly a tragedy, it was close enough in her mind.

"Oranges I can handle," she said cheerfully and went over to poke around in the fridge. "Yep, Kon's one of my best friends. Of course, last time I saw him he had the whole leather jacket and earring thing going so don't ask me when he stopped with that, but yeah."

She paused to do some searching, moving around a few things. "Ooh, we've got a whole bunch in here. How many do you need?"

Getting to know some of Kon's friends could only be a good thing, Claire concluded. Not that she could really take anyone's words as complete fact, not that it really gave her a way out of getting to know him herself, but to have other people vouch for his character couldn't really hurt. For the most part, the young man seemed like he had a straightforward personality. He did what he liked, he spoke his mind, and he'd back off if people made their discomforts well-known, but didn't necessarily intuit them off the bat— but if that was the case, might as well hear that from a number of people.

"Leather jacket and earring?" Claire asked curiously, not without a bit of skepticism in her voice. Immediately, she tried to picture Kon wearing either, conjuring up images of biker thugs. And while Kon's physique certainly would have lent itself to that sort of activity, it was still ridiculous enough when set against his personality that Claire allowed herself a brief laugh. "God, I'm glad he grew out of that."

Peering up at Cissie's question, Claire bit her lip thoughtfully. "Umm... well, we won't need to use that much of the oranges in the cupcakes, maybe just a little juice, but mostly peel. How many do you think we can just eat while they bake? Two or three?"

"Oh yeah," Cissie confirmed in between giggles as she started taking some of the oranges out. "A lot of the girls used to swoon over him, and you better believe he milked it for all he was worth. But that's Kon for you. Underneath it all, he's a - well, brat, but he's a good guy, he really is."

"Three, maybe? That gives us an orange and half each," she suggested.

It wasn't hard to imagine at all that Kon would have enjoyed the sort of attention that girls gave to men with his type of physique and facial structure. Had Kon been from Odessa, Claire imagined that he would've been a shoo-in for the football team, that he would have had all the cheerleaders swarming around him, perhaps even giving Brody a run for his money. Hearing that Kon had been a ham who soaked up all of the attention was slightly disappointing, but not severely so— after all, had Claire not also donned the red and white uniform to attract a bit of attention and gain a great deal of social status around school halls? On the plus side, Cissie's language seemed to suggest that a lot of that behavior had been left in the past.

To a point, at least.

"I guess that's more than we can say for most guys his age who get... that much attention from girls," Claire replied with a raise of her brow and a small shrug. "But yeah, three oranges sounds good to me." Placing the batter on the counter and reaching out to peel an orange, another question came to Claire.

"Are you— you two aren't dating, are you?"

When it came right down to it, Cissie thought a lot of what Kon had been up could simply be chalked up to the whole clone thing and trying to find where he fit into everything. But that was hardly something she was going to bring up right then. If Kon told her, that was one thing, but she didn't know if he had or not and there was just no tactful way to ask.

At the question, she stared incredulously at Claire for a few moments. "What? Oh god no! No no no no no. He's one of my best friends, that's all. It'd be like dating my brother. My older bratty brother."

The response was severe enough that Claire's eyes flew open and she nodded quickly, showing that she understood, hoping that Cissie wasn't too traumatized by the suggestion. It had been made innocently, after all, just Claire trying to figure out what was going on around her so that she could adjust her behavior. Learn how to address people, when to step away to provide for moments of intimacy— it was all part of the surprisingly complex social dance that high school entailed. Raising both hands, she leaned slightly back, teeth grit for a moment in apology.

"Sorry! Sorry," Claire blurted out. "I get it, the whole... best friend, almost like a brother thing. It's just that I know there's someone on this island that he kind of has those feelings for and it's best to be careful around people when they've got a crush or are involved and I just wanted to be careful. Your name sounded familiar and I'm pretty sure the girl's blonde. So I asked. I'm really sorry."

Watching Claire's reaction made Cissie feel sheepish. She hadn't meant to startle her or make her feel bad for asking, it was just dating Kon was just inconceivable on every possible level. Even leaving aside the whole best friend in love with him thing, there was just nothing like that there in her feelings for him. Affection, occasional annoyance - but no love love.

"Hey, you've got nothing to be sorry for! I promise. I, uh... actually know who it is. At least, I'm pretty sure I do, unless he's gone crazy and didn't tell me. It's - yeah. A real big mess on every side, so I hear."

"Yeah, I guess. I mean, I don't... know Kon that well or anything, but he was one of the first people I met on the island, and I always seemed to bump into him," Claire considered, turning her gaze and shaking her head slightly, pulling out a grater to work on getting some orange peel shavings. "And he had this thing where he always seemed to be flirting with me, and I just got out of something bad, and it was weird?"

Bobbing her head, Claire waved her hand in a vague motion before continuing. "But then he reassured me by saying that he already had this girl that he liked. I've never had anything like that, though, being in love with a best friend, so I have no idea what that must be like."

Cissie nodded as she listened, nabbing one of the orange slices. Nothing she was hearing from Claire really surprised her. It was Kon to a T, right down to the quasi-flirting and looking after her. If she was honest with herself, she had to admit that if it wasn't for him being so hung up on Cassie, Claire was just his type.

"Me neither," she said. "Though I'm kinda not sure I want to. At least, look at Kon and my best friend. She's had a crush on him forever but even when they were talking to each other, they still fought a lit. It seems to me that's the best way to ruin a friendship... getting interested in the other person."

Claire put an orange slice in her own mouth as she tried to consider Cissie's opinion and the best way to respond, chewing on the pulp until there was no taste left to be found. As far as love went, Claire knew that she was inexperienced. Had known that even when she was interested in Brody and kissed him. Crushes and dating, none of that compared to the sort of love that her parents shared, for instance. None of that could really match the full extent of the sentiment that was expressed in love songs.

"Well, I don't know, since... I've never had that happen, like I said. But I like to think that a friendship that's really strong can get past stuff like trying to love each other in that way and not having that work out. Maybe I'm just being optimistic because I recently made up with a friend of mine who I hadn't talked to in like, years, but we worked things out and he became my best friend all over again."

Cissie nodded, thoughtfully. "Maybe you're right and it just depends on the people." That was food for thought for sure. She imagined it wouldn't be something Cassie would want to hear right now, but they were due for a griping session and that was something she could bring up. Maybe.

"All I can say, in their case, we're just lucky they haven't torn the place up yet. If they had their powers, they would have, no doubt about that."

Even though it probably wasn't the absolute safest of moves, Claire brushed her finger just so to skim the batter and gave it a taste test, before deciding to add a bit of orange juice, using the mixing bowl to squish one of the orange slices against the side of the bowl and eating the slightly dejuiced, pulpy remnants afterward. Food poisoning and salmonella seemed like such a distant concern to someone who couldn't even keep a stomachache for long.

Pausing, Claire bit her lower lip. "So wait, you mean all that stuff Kon's said about his powers and stuff like that, it's really true? He showed me some comic books and stuff but it's just so hard for me to think of comic books as ever possibly being real, I guess."

Tasting the batter seemed like a good idea, even if, properly speaking, Cissie wasn't cooking and should thus keep her hands out of the bowl. "Mmm," she murmured, looking a bit guilty. "This is going to taste awesome, I can tell."

"But yeah, it's true," she said, leaning back against the counter. "Did he tell you - of course he told you about his TTK, what am I thinking? The whole concept of a secret identity's was always a little lost on him, but considering everything, I guess I can't blame him."

She shook her head and sighed. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Kon says there's stuff about me in there too, and I got to be honest, I really don't know how I feel about that. There's weird and there's weird, you know?"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, although I hope you're right," Claire grinned, mixing the battle with a bit more vigor as she peeked around for some type of oil to grease the pan with, before giving up briefly in favor of the conversation.

"Anyway, about Kon, he's told me a lot of stuff. Or, he tried to, anyway. That was kind of on my first day here on the island so I don't actually remember a lot of what he said, since I was more focused on being marooned on a random island with no way off." The memory brought a wry little grin to Claire's lips as she shook her head. "But he pulled like stacks of comics from that bookshelf and said I could totally read them but that just felt... weird to me, like I'd rather just hear it from him or anyone else who might be in those. I won't read them, by the way, especially if it weirds you out. I know it'd weird me out."

Cissie shook her head in amusement. "I've mentioned that Kon's timing sucks sometimes, right? That sounds like him, that's for sure. When I got here, he told me all this stuff about what happened in the future, like with his statue and everything, and yeah. It was entirely too much to deal with it right then and there, let me tell you."

She sighed and shook her head. "I kinda feel bad for even saying this, but thanks. I just... stuff happened and at least for me, I'd rather tell people about it - when I'm ready, you know?"

"No, believe me," Claire replied, shaking her head in a similar fashion, even if the smile that had teased at her lips was all but gone. "I completely understand and like... would never try to learn about any of my friends that way. Maybe it's easier to just have the story there without it being biased or whatever, but it's like a huge invasion of privacy and kind of stalker-like."

Pausing in her mixing, Claire added a few more spices to go well with the orange taste. "Actually, part of the reason it weirds me out so much is because there was a version of me that was on the island before? And there are a lot of people who knew her and knew about parts of my life and that's just... weird. I really kind of hate it, even if I know that it's no one's fault. Except maybe the island, if the island's doing this on purpose."

"That's like with Bart," Cissie said thoughtfully. "I guess he was here before too, and all kinds of stuff happened. He disappeared and now he's here again. I can't even imagine what that's even like... it must feel so creepy."

She shook her head and leaned over to get another slice of orange. "I definitely am thinking it's the island's fault, any way you look at it. It brought us here, after all, right? It's got some strange kind of humor, that's all I can say."

"It's creepy mostly because..." Claire paused, wondering how much detail she was planning on giving, how much she would feel comfortable telling someone that she had only just met. Then again, with her previous incarnation's antics kept on public record and shared all around the island, it wasn't like she had any privacy with that to begin with. Claire sighed, mixing the batter more vigorously with a wrinkle of her brow. "Because there was this guy, one of the guys who adopted my cousin actually, he knew about some of the things the previous me did on the island? And I just can't imagine doing any of it. So it's not even like I just forgot stuff that I did or anything like that, it's more like there was this other person and she was so obviously not me, even if she looked like me and had my name. Like an evil twin. Except none of the stuff she did was really evil or anything."

Rolling her eyes, Claire pressed her lips together and quickly greased the cups of the pan, not having any paper cups to pour batter into. "Anyway, I kind of prefer not thinking of it as total bad luck instead of the island trying anything. Because it the island has all this power? We're like ants in an ant farm, or worse."

"Oh my god, that has got to be - I can't even imagine," Cissie said, her eyes wide and her hand pressed to her mouth. She had to wonder a bit if this was what Bart felt like, knowing the sort of thing the previous him had been up to (and she was going to stop that train of thought right there).

"At least with an evil twin, it'd be sort of okay, because - evil twin. It's understandable. This - another you doing things you can't imagine you'd do? It's like a world where everything's wrong and Lex Luthor isn't evil. Way too freaky to think about."

"That's exactly what I thought," Claire agreed, waving her index finger before she started on the more precise task of pouring cupcake batter into the pan, pink tongue occasionally sticking out in concentration. Three cupcakes through, she thought she had enough of a handle on the consistency of the batter to continue talking.

"With an evil twin, it's like... oh, you know that this doppelganger of yours is just out to make your life as hard and miserable as possible. Or you expect them to do the opposite of what you'd do in every way. But I heard that this other Claire Bennet, she was sweet and helpful and also good at baking cupcakes, so I don't even know." Claire sighed. "That's why I've been telling everyone who's met me back then to just forget. As well as they can, anyway. Just like I have to try and forget that Lex Luthor's supposed to grow up into someone evil or something like that."

"You know he's President, right? At least in my universe," Cissie tilted her head, making a face. "Not the Lex Luthor here. It's like... I don't even know what to say to him, half the time. He's not supposed to be young or h - yeah. I kind of try to pretend he's not there."

Except that she didn't, really. A Luthor was a Luthor as far as she was concerned, and it was worrisome that he seemed to have most of the island under his sway. But that was so not a conversation for now.

"Mmm, I still say those muffins are going to be awesome," she said, leaning over to get a fresh whiff of the batter. "Not to change the subject or anything."

"Well, you had Lex Luthor for president, and we got George W. Bush, so," Claire laughed, shaking her head as she rubbed the back of her neck, starting to scrape at the batter to make sure they made use of every last trace. "And let me tell you, if Dubya showed up here all young and stuff, I would probably also try to pretend that he wasn't around."

Grinning from ear to ear, Claire shuffled her way on over to the oven and stuck the pan of muffins in, clapping her hands once she'd finished. After whirling around, her grin only widened. "I think the muffins will be pretty awesome too. Hopefully."

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but the sun does shine in this place some days

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