and then she'd say, 'it's okay, i got lost on the way, but i'm a supergirl and supergirls don't cry'

[lucked]

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'

Comments

[floozyfacade]

It's not like she's never been in a hospital. The Penderghast children have had their share of breaks and sprains, of childhood complaints, and Olive's as guilty as Kale of getting into scrapes, though she's escaped the stitches he's brought on himself on more than one occasion. All of that, though, is nothing to this, and when she enters the clinic, it's with an unusual degree of trepidation. Claire's hurt, badly hurt, and though she doesn't look as upset or worn down as Olive might have expected, she's still bandaged and bruised, lying in that bed, and it's terrifying. They say the Compound isn't high enough that the fall could kill someone, but that isn't true. Height has a lot to do with it, but it's the impact that counts, and she's reasonably sure the right - the wrong - angle could have been the end of her friend.

Edging around the bed, she pulls the seat closer as she eases into it. "Claire, my God," she says, "what happened? Is there anything I can do or, or get for you or - ?" She shakes her head, abrupt, not sure what she'

[lucked]

Claire hates thinking about things like normalcy. Hates having to label things as regular or irregular, hates the fact that for all of the wonderful, horrific, miraculous, and impossibly strange things that have happened to the people on the island, that it still casts everyone onto some sort of scale, like there's now an ability to compare the weight of what one's experienced. Claire hates it. Doesn't want to think of her life as any more or less burdening than anyone else's, because in the end, what matters are the emotions, and less the events. But make no mistake, she considers that scale as much as anyone else

[floozyfacade]

"Okay," Olive says, nodding quickly, trying not to let that shed tear panic her any. Nothing about this is okay, nothing is fine, not when Claire's in this condition, but it will be. She reaches for her hand before she thinks about whether or not that, too, is hurt, and leans over on an impulse to kiss the other girl's cheek. It just takes time, she reminds herself, and whatever could have happened is less important than where they are now - and bad as that is, it's something Claire can come back from easy, given time. Maybe not as easy as all that, when it looks painful, but it's still only a matter of time.

"You scared the hell out of me," she admits. "God, we need to put, like, some serious railings up there or something, like they had on Mardi Gras, so things like this don't happen." Somehow the idea of it is even worse than the idea of people vanishing. Olive may not be accustomed to the idea, but it's common here, people just up and disappearing, but in a place like that, anything more ordinary is somehow alarming for its

[lucked]

The fact that Olive just goes along with the explanation, not pressing, not prodding, just makes Claire feel worse. She tries to go with it for a while. Offers a wan smile to agree with everything that Olive says, that they need better railings up there, so that people don't, god forbid, end up sleepwalking their way off. It only strikes her now that she's sitting in the hospital, how much worse things could have been. A couple of broken ribs and punctured lung aren't really much, in the grand scheme of things. The thought sends a shiver through Claire's body and her eyes shut suddenly, tightly, a hand covering her mouth as she chokes back a sob, shaking her head

[floozyfacade]

It's incredibly ominous, but all Olive can do from where she's sitting is hold Claire's hand when she would rather hug her. She doesn't dare try, not with the injuries Claire has, but it's hard to look at her getting choked up and not reach out to her. They've only known each other a couple of months, give or take, but Olive knows well that time doesn't matter quite as much as people, that clicking with someone happens fast, and it doesn't matter if Claire's a new friend; she's a dear one, one of the best Olive has here, and seeing her this way makes her heart ache. She nods fervently at the request, wide-eyed and about as serious as she ever gets. "Y-yes," she says, "Claire, of course. I won't tell and, and you can tell me anything. It's gonna be fine."

[lucked]

Her heart thuds against her chest. There's a regular cadence to it, one that Claire tries to ignore, because the last thing she needs to hear now is adrenaline rushing through her in the way that it hasn't since... watching her uncle soar up into the air, his skin glowing with radiation. So Claire's hand tightens its grip on Olive's hand, grounding herself, reminding Claire of what her real priority is here, even if it's one that's frightening. She's supposed to trust her friends deeply enough for this to be a cinch, but sometimes it's still hard, remembering the way that Lyle reacted upon finding out. Her own brother, of all people. One can never really predict who'll take well to the fact, she supposes

[floozyfacade]

There's confusion in Olive's expression for longer than she'd like. She's not proud of that. She's a clever girl and she likes knowing that, so any time it takes a little longer for her to work through something, it's frustrating. It's just a difficult notion to wrap her mind around - not that she doesn't understand the concept, one that belongs more to someone out of a comic book than one of her closest friends, but because her mind is working double-time to apply that to this situation and she doesn't like what she comes up with.

"You jumped?" she asks, voice lowered to a hiss, less out of anger than to keep this secret between them. "Claire." It wasn't like she meant to hurt herself, but it's still a crazy thing to do. Granted, if she were like a tiny, adorable Wolverine, she'd probably go running wild and get herself into all kinds of trouble, too, but Olive still can't take the idea of Claire choosing to jump off a building, ability or no, and not feel a little dizzy from the mental image. She knows this makes at least the

[lucked]

It's the relief washing over her that sends everything over Claire's limit. An overdrive of emotion, and she's not sure how to deal with all of it, simply staring there and blinking blankly for the first several moments. There's shame, of course. There's always been shame whenever she feels like she has to lie, and that's been highlighted ever since she found out what her dad was really doing, that he didn't actually work at a paper factory. Because Claire knows that if there's anyone she doesn't want herself to turn into, it's her dad. It's not even like he isn't a good dad- he is, and Claire's still convinced that he's the best- but being to lie that easily, even if Claire realizes that it could be something that ends up saving her someday, it's just not something that she wants to be able to do. The relief almost washes all of that out, gratitude that Claire feels, glad that she chose to do this. To open up

[floozyfacade]

"Clearly," Olive says, although it's the kind of adolescent disdain that comes from genuinely caring about someone. "Claire, you could have been hurt so bad and what if it had stuck at home?" For all that she tends to be pretty good at understanding people, this one is beyond her. It's one thing to accept the existence of such abilities, if only in some other time and space, not least because shit around here is bananas; pushing it that extra step to understand what would drive someone to behave the way Claire has is beyond her, at least in such a brief time. A little while longer and maybe she'll get it, but she's not sure she will without being told or that Claire is up for telling her

[lucked]

"Hey," Claire protests lightly, shaking her head with mock gravity. "That game is a classic. Don't knock

[floozyfacade]

It doesn't occur to me until she says it, the idea she'd never die with a power like that. The thought is kind of terrifying, actually, now that she mentions it. I don't know, it's something you always think of as a positive, the kind of thing people say they want, but I don't think they're thinking it through. I barely have, I just know I wouldn't want it.

Olive doesn't know what she can do to help, and she has this unshakeable need to help, to try and make Claire feel better about this or anything else. For now, she focuses instead on the conversation at hand, hoping fervently that just talking about it will be of some use. After all, it sounds to her as if Claire's been keeping this pretty well under wraps, and sometimes that's the worst, keeping everything buried. "Well, you know now," she says, more hopeful than chastising. "It doesn't need to happen again. Because you, you can, you can die here, and I'm sure that, at home, it was... God, just bizarre and terrifying and, and all of that, but it's different now."

[lucked]

"It's just..."

There are a lot of Claire's sentences that start out with those words. Times when she's making excuses, or trying to fit all of her problems into a neatly-packaged box, something that others can swallow, something that helps her get away. They feel strange, this time, resting on the tip of her tongue. Like she can't do this situation that kind of injustice. There's nothing simple about it, nothing small, nothing light. Bizarre and terrifying seem to only scratch the surface. So Claire looks down at her hands again and lets those thoughts simmer, before she shakes her head.

"You know, honestly, I feel like I could probably learn how to deal with the whole healing thing, if it was just that. For a few months, I let that consume me, you know? Felt like a freak, a monster, like I was just this... non-human creature. My brother Lyle even accused me of being an alien," she sighs, her lips quirking slightly. "But then all this other stuff started happening, people coming after me for my power, my family getting hurt in the

[floozyfacade]

"Okay," Olive says. It's an answer only to the last part, because the rest deserves more consideration, because she trusts that, when Claire says that, she means it. There's no need to worry here that this will repeat itself or that Claire's going to try to kill herself or anything of that nature; she'll be fine in that regard. The rest of it is almost too big even for Olive's imagination to encompass. It isn't like the thought hasn't crossed her mind that this could all be in her head. She doesn't think her imagination deserves this kind of credit, but the mind's a bizarre and tricky thing, difficult to understand and she can't honestly say it isn't possible either. It feels too real, though, and she hasn't seen the point in denial, choosing instead to try and live out her sentence or whatever this is and hoping, in spite of everything, she's not kept here too long. "I'm sorry. About all the rest of it. That sounds... God, Claire, I'm sorry, that's awful."

[lucked]

While Claire knows that it's not precisely pity that's being handed to her, nonetheless she looks up, shaking her head and waving a hand. "It's not like it's all been bad," she insists, because maybe that's what she needs right now. To be reminded of the good, not only on Tabula Rasa, but back home as well. That all of the adversity has, in its own way, brought her closer to the memories of her family, made them a more cohesive whole. That she's actually met her biological family, something that she'd never been that crazy to learn before learning about her abilities, but still a question that probably would have come up sooner or later. And more than anything else, in spite of the fact that she's just taken a dive off the Compound roof not twenty-four hours ago, it's worth noting too: that she has that kind of identity to question at all

[floozyfacade]

Olive nods, gaze dropping briefly, if only because that idea hits a little too close to home. She knows, she has felt, that this is real, that it's happening to her, and she has no reason to question that, but she was just as sure they really went back to Harvard and she thought she could handle the consequences of playing pretend at school, and the plain fact is, she's sure of a lot of things that aren't true. She has so, so much to go back to, and so much she doesn't want to leave behind, and it's really hard to pit home against the first time in her life she's had a wide circle of friends and a boyfriend who adores her. In the end, she knows what she has to pick every single time, but that doesn't make her feel much better about it. Claire's right, though - there are so many people who have it worse.

"God, I know," she says, shaking her head. "I mean, I am this close to finishing my junior year. Or I, I was. I should be on summer vacation. I should be looking at brochures and websites and trying to decide once and for all where to

[lucked]

It's never really occurred much to Claire before, to talk to Olive about this in particular, though she's glad for it now. As much as she's been able to finally see the island in a more positive light, the fact still is that she wants to return home. That isn't something she can talk to Eden about at great length, and even with Mary Jane, Claire's a bit hesitant. After all, Mary Jane has found herself an almost idyllic life on the island, has gotten married, and so much more; to try and find solace in the fact that all of this is just temporary seems to be the most tactless thing she could say. But with Olive, who's still new to it all, maybe it's more acceptable. Maybe the two of them can, together, try and figure out how they feel about the island in its entirety, how much they're willing to adapt and become part of it and its populace