through the looking glass.

Tue, 22 Jul 2014 08:01:53 GMT

Before she can even fully open her eyes, Claire senses the change in the air. Feels the soft fabric of her sheets underneath her fingers, and the folds of her pillowcase pursing underneath her cheek. This isn't the nothingness that everyone on the island had promised, but nor is it the crystal clarity that any of them receive when only on shore leave — instead, it's a gradual shift and a clearing of the fog, much like waking up after a dream.

So this must be what Alice felt like, Claire thinks, when she passed through the looking glass.

The sound of an alarm cuts jarringly through the air, and she blearily reaches a hand out to silence it for a few more minutes. The habit hasn't diminished. It's as regular as breathing.

As Claire stares up at the ceiling, she wonders how she manages not to cry.

It isn't the first time that her mind's deceived her. If there's anything that Claire's learned since finding more people like her in the world, it's that the complexity of time runs far deeper than looking underneath the cover of a book. Time erases lines, rewrites history, and turns truth into the fine grain of sand, insubstantial and inconstant.

That doesn't stop her from filing each memory away in her mind, carefully retracing her steps, eyes focused on nothing in particular as she goes about her day. Folding laundry. Washing the dishes. Searching for tan lines, with her gaze resting too long on the freckles across her skin. They're not the same ones as in her dream, but Claire swears that she can see his lips tracing down the crook of her elbow, pausing to kiss every one.

Her mother frets, pushing back strands of blonde hair, searching for a temperature. But the only fever is in her movements, harried as she brushes everyone aside. If she blinks now, she'll forget the sight of him.

Idly, she slumps at her computer desk, clicking around articles about Bristol.

On the third day, her glass shatters on the floor as she comes across an obituary.

And curses him for having a common name.

"No. Absolutely not. You know that time isn't meant to be trifled with. You don't know what would happen if I went back in time to change this one thing — it could put everyone in danger."

"But Hiro—"

"—no. I am very sorry for your loss."

His silhouette begins to fade in the distance, blending in with the shadow of the trees. Oak, maple — Claire can't remember which, even though she's been in this forest so many times she can't even begin to count. For the first time, she feels the passage of years under her skin, like bolts of fabric expertly sewn together to hide the seam.

Leaves fall around them in a rush of wind, crimson and golden browns carried in a rush.

"Don't you think that if this was really just about saving a person, that I would have asked you for that by now?" she asks, a shuddering breath passing through her teeth as she runs to chase after Hiro, hand reaching out for the slope of his shoulder. "Do you really think that there isn't anything else I'd ask you to try and rewrite for me? Jackie may have been a bitch, but she didn't deserve to die. Don't you think that if I could, I would have asked you to go back in time to when I discovered this power, and just... find some way of preventing me from ever finding out? You get to control time. You're the one who can skip around it however he wants. But I'm like its — I'm like its prisoner. I can't do anything but watch everyone else go by."

She feels Hiro's shoulder stiffen under her hand, and softly, Claire lets it fall back to her side.

"It was real. That island, and those people, they were real. But no matter how well I describe that place to you, you won't find it — you can't teleport there. You can't fly, you can't phase, I promise you, there's something else more powerful than all of us. I saw it there. I lived it."

She wraps her arms tightly around her chest, focused on bringing strength to her voice.

"She was there, Hiro. I know about her. Charlie. She was there, and alive, and she had a child and — she got to live the life that this world wouldn't give her. I know how hard you tried to bring her back.

"Can you really let this go without trying one more time?"

It's not perfect. They don't have anything more than a date and a hospital to go on, and it takes several tries before they wind up in the right room, behind the right walls, without triggering panic wherever they walk. It's trial and error enough to know that they only have the space of a precious few minutes to work with — a canvas that no amount of effort will allow them to paint outside of.

Hiro stands watch at the door, a nebulous fear taut in the bite of his jaw.

Claire doesn't allow herself to look up at his face. Instead, it's the warmth of his hands that guides her, familiar and soft and she swears that even the callouses on his finger pads are exactly as she remembers them, calling forth the memory of a thumb brushed by the curve of her cheek. Her fingers start to waver in strength as they fumble through drawers, finding the supplies that she needs, mimicking the mental image of a diagram she found on the internet.

God, she should have done better than a diagram on the internet.

Pain prickles through her arm, a welcome shift away from the numbness she expected as she sits by his bedside. Not a minute passes before she shifts her arm, the angle awkward, but just enough for her to lace her fingers with his, willing for something else to be transferred to him, less tangible than the pulse of her blood.

She hasn't believed in God for years, but she prays. It's the only thing keeping her from shaking apart.

When she feels the squeeze against her palm, Claire swears that her heart stops.

When she hears her name escape his lips, it's the first time Claire believes that anything is possible.

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and that was attempt number six

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 01:36:06 GMT

[ LINK TO VIDEO ]

It shows up one day, next to her bed. Claire isn't sure that she finds that to be a surprise. Everyone receives gifts from home at some point or another, some infinitely comforting, and others shaking the ground beneath one's feet. She's thought about it on more than one occasion, trying to imagine what the island might gift her with. Her cheerleader uniform always happened to be the thing that came first to mind, red and white arranged in a way that's started to fade in her memory, just at the edges. She remembers the way that it feels on her shoulders more than the way it looks, remembers the way that it used to wrap her up in safety. No longer a nerd, no longer in danger of being a loser, but instead the admired and the revered one in the school. She thinks about something of her dad's arriving, like that impressive display of plastic frames laid out on the table. She thinks about Mr. Muggles' grooming kit, about Lyle's soccer uniform. Thinks of her collection of teddy bears from around the world, the ones she so loved before she realized why her father, manager of a paper factory, really went on those trips.

Thinks of Zach, and his camcorder, and that's the one that returns to mind most often. How so many of their adventures were captured on that length of tape. Dozens of attempts.

Just thinking about it seems like too much to hope for, and so Claire stamps down the thought, cradles her own camcorder close and records the people and sights around her. Old West is a teenage girl's dream— or at least, a teenage girl like her, adventurous and full of love for whimsy and the older tales from generations ago. In reality, it's too hot, too dry, and the lack of certain conveniences is a pain in the butt, but on tape, everything looks beautiful.

Which makes it funny, when Zach's camcorder shows up on her nightstand. That tape might prove to be the exception to the rule.

Claire doesn't know camcorders all that well, not really. Just thinks that it looks like the one that Zach owned, pops open the side to see his handwriting on the tape, black Sharpie that still smells acrid to her nose. It doesn't take her long before she heads to the new and improved Compound, finding the projector and hooking the two up as best as she can, with everything running on that strange technology that doesn't seem quite true to history, instead the type of steampunk found in modern revisions of Westerns. Glancing around her, she's glad that the new terrain has people coming in this room less often. There's too much to see to coop oneself in with the bookshelf.

Then again, somehow she gets the feeling that she wouldn't mind company, for once. And she bites down hard on her lip, pressing play.

Camera ready?

Yeah, almost. Hold on.

The video spans the area of the wall, and Claire releases her hold on the camcorder, lets it rest on the table as she steps back once, twice, three times, and feels her eyes burn upon revisiting memories from years ago.

[ Dated to April 4th, set inside the Old West equivalent of the rec room. Open indefinitely to ST/LT, but only to those who have met Claire before. No limit. ]

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Claire Bennet

through the looking glass.

and that was attempt number six