taxonomites | 005: [Visual] [Location: Walking around near the Sanctuary] No news is good news.

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005: [Visual] [Location: Walking around near the Sanctuary] No news is good news.

(OOC: This is a canon update to Heroes 4x08: Shadowboxing. Don't say I didn't warn you.)

It had been a bad day from the moment she had woken up. The idea of getting some kind of memory upgrade wasn't new to Claire, but the memories were. She could clearly remember Gretchen saying that she wasn't like her before she left, and how lonely she had felt sleeping in an empty dorm room. Her dad had almost killed Becky - to protect her, as usual. He wanted her to have the millions of normal things that she wanted but was never going to get. If Becky wasn't standing in her way, someone else would be.

As she started out of the Sanctuary, her thoughts drifted back to Sylar and his 'identity crisis'. She wanted to believe that she was wrong, but everything in her said otherwise. Every time she tried to think up another way to explain what Angela had said to her, she came up empty. And it wasn't just what she had said, it was the fact that she had never heard anything about Nathan being in trouble after that. Nathan hadn't mentioned it and didn't have any memories beyond that day. She kept catching up to the way things could have been at home, but his mind wasn't doing that. His memories stopped in that hotel room.

Gretchen was lucky to have gotten out when she could, because she was right; this was everyday life for Claire. The people she cared about were always in trouble. If they didn't leave, they ended up hurt or killed. It wasn't always her fault, but it was her life. She couldn't expect other people to give up theirs just because she cared about them. The truth was, she asked enough of people just by expecting them to believe that she had been through everything that she said she had. And she needed to stop trying to fix problems that were bigger than her with the first solution that came to mind.

Claire quickened her pace, turning her tablet on, then off, then on again as she walked. She wanted to check in on Nathan and talk to Peter, but she wasn't sure that she should do that right away. "Hey, it's -" she stopped talking, rubbing her eyes tiredly and continuing to move away from the Sanctuary.

"Nevermind, just..." If she couldn't form a sentence, she probably shouldn't have been trying to start a conversation with anyone. "Just, forget I said anything."

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[ooc ;; /bumps Peter's ass too. ]

"Claire?"

Peter fumbled around to try and find his tablet that was somewhere on the floor of his room. He slowly raised his head once his hand found it, looking over the edge of the bed at the visual image. She looked just as tired as he felt. His free hand moved up to rub his eyes as he tried to recall why he was so tired, besides probably the obvious which left to why he was shirtless in bed.

Then all the memories hit him at once. Son of a bitch, again? Peter shut his eyes tiredly and pulled his hand down his face. At least now he knew why he was exhausted. Even more so than he really should of been. Which meant that now he had Jeremy's healing ability still. And his body was screaming at him for abusing it.

Well, too bad, because distressed nieces trumped exhaustion.

"What is it?"

Edited 2009-11-11 04:21 (UTC)

"Nothing," Claire responded, intentionally not looking at the tablet. She looked ahead of her and held her tablet a little lower, hoping that Peter would let it go this time. She wasn't going to say anything about how things were piling up for them, because it wasn't fair. Sharing unconfirmed theories was only going to hurt someone.

"I just woke up with some new memories." She tried to shrug it off, going so far as to force a smile for him. "I'm good." Really.

"Yeah?" He lifted his eyebrows and offered a smile. And hoped she didn't realize how tired he was. "What are they about this time?"

His really weren't worth mentioning. Except for the part where he and Bennet went off to find Jeremy. Too bad Hiro decided to leave before he could heal him. He was going to find that Japanese guy eventually.

"Nothing huge. We saw each other again." Avoiding eye contact did a lot to keep her from noticing how worn out he was. Other things would have also prevented her from asking about that. "Gretchen decided that being my roommate wasn't worth the risk, so." Why hadn't she expected that? It would have hurt a lot less if she had known it was coming. She should have realized that it would be too much for her.

"I haven't seen the rest of your family in a while." That meant Nathan and Angela, although one worried her more than the other. "I guess we've all been busy."

"I haven't either." He half-shrugged. "Noah and I found that kid we were looking for, Jeremy? And I got his healing ability. By the time I got back to the hospital, Hiro was gone. But... I haven't seen Mom since I invited her over for breakfast. She spent the entire time worrying where Nathan was."

Then he made a face. "And then Nathan showed up at my apartment. So, I guess everything is okay." Peter didn't want to worry her. Nathan was oddly clingy when he showed up at the apartment. But, telling Claire that wouldn't do anyone any good.

"He did?" Claire looked up, genuinely surprised to hear that. She didn't want to hope that it meant Nathan was alive. For all they knew, it was Sylar posing as Nathan and they hadn't caught up to it yet. "Was he alright? What did he say?" she continued, asking questions quicker than he could answer them.

He blinked a few times and let himself catch up to her barrage of questions before trying to answer them. He ran his hand down his face again and exhaled. Should he lie to her to make her feel better? Peter wasn't really sure if it was Sylar posing as Nathan, or if really was Nathan. It could have easily been that Gabriel's mind was flooded with Nathan's memories from when he tried to become Nathan. Which meant that, it could have really been Nathan that came to his apartment.

"He was a little worried. Though, might of been because he was wearing plaid." Peter said with a smile. "He's a senator, Claire. He's going to be busy. And Mom probably has been her nosy self. So that with having to clean up Building 26? I can see why he isn't around."

Edited 2009-11-11 06:05 (UTC)

She nodded, not buying it because it just didn't feel right. Nothing that should have eased her minds did much to comfort her, in spite of the effort Peter was making to try to convince her that Nathan was okay. "So you've seen your mom?" Now that was a different direction to take the conversation in, and one that might still tell her something.

"Was she weird..er than usual? I mean, you didn't notice anything different with her?"

OOC: Is still totally so unbumped. It's a lonely life.

Nathan frowned from inside Mary's guest room and looked to the tablet, picking it up. He'd just finished 'unpacking', which was actually getting clothes to wear from the replicators since his former wardrobe was a little wrecked by now.

So Claire's timing was impeccable. And in a sense, probably a good thing. He hadn't quite gotten to telling her where he was staying yet.

"Hi." He looked down at the screen, frown deepening at the look on Claire's face. "What's going on?"

"Nothing, just another memory upgrade." She was going to offer all of that up at once for Nathan, since he wasn't likely to push for more information. Peter was the one who worried when something was wrong. Nathan was better about accepting whatever answer she gave him.

"You're not where I left you," Claire commented in an effort to change the subject, trying to examine what she could of Nathan's surroundings. "What's going on with you?"

He could tell there was more to it, but she cut him off from getting any further for the moment. Well, at least he'd be getting it over with now. How he was going to explain this without it sounding like something it wasn't, he wasn't sure.

Still, Claire would draw her own conclusions no matter what he said. So maybe it didn't matter. "The house is gone." That part didn't really need any tact. "Someone destroyed it, and I'm staying with a..."

Well. Just what were they?

"A friend."

Yeah.

"You have friends?" Claire asked, immediately guilty for sounding the way that she did about that. Considering her situation back home, she was a little jealous, and kind of surprised. Nathan had never mentioned anyone in Taxon who they didn't know from home. Not to mention the fact that they people who they did know would have been more interested in hitting him than offering him a place to stay.

"You probably could have stayed at the Sanctuary." But with Sylar there, she could understand why he had made other arrangements. "Who's your friend?"

Whether or not he should've been, Nathan wasn't really offended. It was almost surprising to say it, even if he wasn't exactly sure it was the correct label. He knew if they weren't friends already, they'd at least make it that far. No further, though. Of course.

"Mary Winchester, I met her at a bar."

That sounded exactly like what it wasn't. "We talked." He made sure to add immediately after that. They'd just talked. "She's here with her sons, but in her time they're children. Here, they're both adults now."

He had no idea what he'd do if Claire was that far ahead of him in time. Granted, she'd likely look about the same, but it was disturbing still to even picture it. "After I found out the house was gone, I talked to her, and she offered me her guest room. It happened before I thought about the Sanctuary."

"You're probably better off with your lady-friend anyway, considering who's running around here," she admitted, still curious about the woman with the grown sons who had picked Nathan up in a bar. Mary. She'd have to see if Peter knew anything about her. And if not Peter, Ashley would have been willing to pass on any information she might have had on her.

"I have a question." One that she didn't really want to know the answer to, but needed to ask. It was the first thing they should have done when Sylar had started shifting into him. "What's the last thing you remember happening back home. You said you were at the hotel with us, but what were you doing just before you came here?"

Edited 2009-11-11 07:21 (UTC)

"Don't say 'lady-friend', I'm not that old." He chastised, not particularly pleased with the idea of sounding like he was sixty. He had a ways before he'd get that far, thank you, and Nathan would cling to that for as long as he could.

At her question, he was frowning again. So there was something going on. The memory upgrade might've been worse than she was making it sound. The one he wasn't getting. He couldn't say he was surprised. "I was going up against Sylar."

Nathan had to admit, if Peter and Claire were moving this far ahead of him in their memories, he was a little... Concerned. "Why?"