Claire Bennet

[ 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. ]

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.