but the sun does shine in this place some days

[regenerated]

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?"

Comments

[arrowette]

"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."

[regenerated]

"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."

[arrowette]

"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."

[regenerated]

"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."

[arrowette]

"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."

[regenerated]

"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."