Day 58: Cafeteria

[gald_digger]

Anise woke up feeling lucky to be alive. She still felt a bit waterlogged, even though her skin, hair, and clothes were completely dry. During last night's adventures, she'd swallowed a lot of water, and it still felt heavy and disgusting in her stomach. Her arms and legs were tired from treading water. Lying still in her bed, she still kind of

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[human_sponge]

It seemed that whenever Peter actually got up to help the patients who'd been experimented on, the end of the night was actually something of a relief. It meant that all of them would be safe, rather than having to worry about being attacked in the dark while they were already vulnerable. Granted, he didn't know how much help he'd been when the kid they'd found had already healed from all his wounds, but

[autophoenix]

With everything hugged out between her and the younger Peter, Claire had to admit she was feeling … well, a little better. When she woke up that morning, she didn't even feel that bothered by going through the motion of getting her stupid military uniform together. When she moved out into the cafeteria and began to put her plate together, she caught sight of her uncle, and for a minute, just one minute, it almost felt like normalcy

[human_sponge]

Well, look at that. The second he started worrying about her in earnest, she showed up, just like that

[autophoenix]

Claire shrugged as she disregarded her plate and settled on only drinking her drink, the very picture of nonchalance. It had been a while, hadn't it? She'd gotten used to seeing Peter practically every day, even though back home she was lucky to see him once a month with the way things had gone. Realizing it gave her a little bit of a pause

[human_sponge]

For some reason, he hadn't really expected that. Peter paused halfway to bringing his fork to his mouth and then set the utensil down, staring across the table at Claire as he tried to judge her feelings on being visited. In the end, though, it was hard to tell. Chances were that she felt the same way about the whole thing as he did.

While she didn't come right out and say it, she was implying that at this point she couldn't even manage to be angry with her father. Peter could understand that. As terrible as this place was, it had the side effect of pointing out what was really important. Grudges and arguments were hard to hold up when your loved one was completely messed up in the head. He sighed, thinking of his own family members. They were relying on him to help them, even if they didn't realize it.

"Nathan and my mom have visited me too," he replied, not remembering if he'd mentioned it to Claire before. "It's... really weird, since you can see how it's still them but..." Peter had never suspected that it was a double or some

[autophoenix]

"But, you can't."

She said it like she was being petulant and defensive, but there was decisiveness and determination in her gaze to back it up when she fixed her attention on him. Her lips tugged into a firm line, the tiredness wearing out of her features and finally getting replaced by the strength that she knew she'd been growing.

"I mean, you can't know it's them. Peter, a few nights ago, I ran into a perfect replica of you and I had no idea until the next day that it was anything but the truth. What if these people, who they're calling our family, aren't actually them either? What if it's just … some monster that turned into them? Or some weird science experiment like the kind they run upstairs

[human_sponge]

For some reason, Peter hadn't expected Claire to argue with him on this.

And, in a way, it hurt. He realized what she was getting at -- they couldn't ever assume anything as fact here -- but still, he'd known it. There were certain things that Peter was willing to believe on gut instinct alone, and this was one of them. Nathan was his brother, someone he'd known since the day he was born. It wouldn't be that easy to just make some replica of him like that.

Claire might have been fooled by whatever doppelganger of him was wandering around, but that was also because she didn't know him that well when it came down to it. It'd been less than a year since they'd first met. Of course, saying any of that out loud was bound to just upset her, which wasn't Peter's aim.

"Claire, it's... my brother. My mom. I know it's them." Besides, any alternatives were just too hard for him to accept. The idea that they weren't really safe at all, that they might be chained up somewhere as lab rats being tortured -- Peter just wasn't willing to

[autophoenix]

An argument. It was just one after another it seemed, and as much as Claire didn't want to fight, she knew she couldn't just give it up that easily either. She had to believe that it wasn't her dad. She had to believe it was just … like the hallucination or Peter's doppelganger. It was just something else to mess with her head. It couldn't be that her dad honestly thought she was some other girl. Some other daughter.

"And I knew it was you! Peter, this place has done nothing but play mind games with us, what makes you think that these 'visitations' aren't just another way to do it? They're messing with our heads and trying to distract us." From what, she didn't know. Getting out, maybe, but it wasn't as if many of them stood a chance of doing that in the first place

[human_sponge]

It did seem like they fought more than they agreed on things these days, and Peter wondered why that was. Did they not click as much as they'd thought when they'd met that night in Odessa, or was it just the stress of this situation wearing on them both? Peter was inclined to think that it was the latter combined with the fact that they were still feeling each other out

[autophoenix]

She'd been trying. Ever since she got here, knowing that Peter was from earlier in time than she was, she was trying. But spending a good deal of her life in Costa Verde completely ignored by him, and then having him blow her off in the way she felt like he did after Sylar attacked her …

It had left a scar. Not a visible one, maybe, but she had never been good at keeping those. And as hard as she tried not to hold it against this Peter, this good Peter who hadn't hurt or ignored her, it was nearly impossible to do so and she still found herself bickering with him. She liked to just dismiss it as him not being used to her really being able to take care of herself and do things for herself.

That comment made Claire's expression blanch entirely. Her eyes went wide and her jaw felt like it sagged open a little in surprise. She couldn't even begin to know how she felt about that. Up until this point, Peter was the only person she'd ever met who could do what she could do, and that was because she could. The idea that someone

[human_sponge]

Claire's response turned out to be pure shock, and Peter couldn't really get more out of it than that. That was more or less what he'd been expecting, but he just hoped that deciding to tell her about this didn't end up backfiring in some way. Albedo certainly hadn't seemed interested in hiding what he was capable of, at least. The kid he'd taken care of last night was another story, but either way he didn't necessarily have to name names

[autophoenix]

Acting like it was normal for him. She almost let the ghost of a smile hit her lips at that. She kinda had to wonder if that's how the other Peter had looked at it when he'd seen her do it. If it was that weird to see someone just walking off mortal wounds like it was nothing -- because, to her, after everything she'd gone through in the past year, it really was. But, for Claire, there wasn't time to sit and wonder.

"Do you know their names? Peter, I have to talk to them." Have to. It wasn't an option. It wasn't a want. It was a biological necessity. She needed the solidarity, she needed the tie to normalcy and, more than anything, she needed to know if they were having the same problems with her powers as Sylar breaking her had done to hers. The lack of pain.

Being able to talk to another regen. Just the idea left her skin chilly.

[human_sponge]

So she did want to talk to them, then. Peter still didn't know if Claire was happy about this or if she just had mixed feelings, but he figured that it wasn't really the time to pick her brain on the whole subject. Better to get her the information and then let her go seek it all out herself

[autophoenix]

All things considered, including her own experience, Claire couldn't blame the other guy for not really seeming willing to talk. And she didn't even have that undercutting urge to, either, which was a big point of personal growth for her. More maturity, less selfish demands of people. She finished off her drink as Peter talked, then gave a definite nod

[human_sponge]

"A lot of people here have pretty odd names. It's better not to question it." In reality, Peter knew it was because a majority of them weren't even from Earth, but he didn't know how Claire would handle that explanation. Being able to magically heal all wounds was one thing; other planets and dimensions was another. When had their lives turned into a comic book

[autophoenix]

Weird names wasn't really something she'd encountered so far. Natalia was probably the closest, and she was … well, her weirdness fell into different territory entirely. She still wasn't sure what to make of the other girl, and was flummoxed on figuring out if she was actually crazy or just as displaced as Claire and Peter were. Then again, it wasn't exactly Claire's business to judge that