tampered | log; on-going

log; on-going

When; Wednesday evening, May 6th | pre-dated
Rating; PG? IDK
Characters; Jamie Madrox (

crackwise) & Claire Bennet (

adamantined)
Summary; Some conversations are just better over spilled milk.
Log;

She spends too much time in the kitchen, endlessly running through recipes and cleaning and rearranging things. It's what her mother used to do in Odessa and, to some extent, in Costa Verde. There's nothing boiling and Claire isn't actually cleaning or making anything for once in her life, her laptop open and glowing on the marble counter that she's pulled herself up to. Somewhere in the apartment, Mr. Muggles pads softly from room to room, dragging someone's dirty sock behind him like a war prize, the spoils of some victory pulled from Zach's hamper. It almost feels normal, and it would feel normal if it weren't the exact opposite of what she's come to know these past few months. Then again, life has never been socially normal for anyone in this City, least of all her.

Claire checks the digital clock on her desktop and rolls her bare foot against the bottom wrung of her chair, curling her toes. Waiting is a patient game for patient people, and while Claire is patient enough, she has her drawbacks, and she has her faults, and if looking out the window every five minutes isn't telling enough then her endless fidgeting is. For once, she's glad that the apartment is empty, that the sun is low over the City, and that she checked the Hall this morning before heading to work.

It's uncertain if it's excitement, anxiety, or terror that pulls her intestines when she hears the knock at the door, but either way she's off the chair in an instant, bumping her hip hard against the counter as she slams the laptop shut. She has to stand on her tiptoes to reach the peep hole, but for as long as it takes to get to the door and see Jamie on the other side of the warped scope, she's that much quicker in unchaining the thing and pulling it back, her smile rushed and caught on the end of an exhale.

"You're back."

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Clicks of a gun's safety being turned on and off, on and off, still ring in Jamie's ears as he climbs the stairs to Claire's apartment, although the gun is nowhere near his hands, tucked instead in the waist of his jeans. Easy access, but hidden. He knows that the clicks are actually those of the City clock, but suspension of disbelief is more than possible when a man is on the verge of sending a bullet through his brain, and so he'll let him believe that this is all a dream of sorts. The carpet underneath his feet, the smell of air freshener in the halls, it's too much of a blessing to ever be real for Jamie Madrox, and at the same time, too much of a curse. Certainty is something which slips through his fingers like sand, and yet, lately, Jamie has been able to cling onto it in a few ways. That he was ready to spend the rest of his life with Terry and their son. That he could no longer lean on the team, expect them to go chasing after his trail. That he was ready to end it all, let John Maddox take over as he would.

It's a curse because that's slipping through his fingers too, if he's not just hearing voices and seeing visions. His memory isn't ever the problem. He knows that he can't die in the City, that if he shot himself in the head, the likelihood of ending up in that City graveyard was slim at best. And if he's only going to come back time and time again, what's the point?

Especially if he can't even enjoy a turkey sandwich through it all.

Which is why the safety of the gun is kept on, for now, and when he sees that smile flash across a familiar face, his brows knit with confusion, although his eyes are still largely unfocused--blurs are more dream-like, right? No one's smiled at him in quite some time. Actually, everything these days is either a glare of anger or disgust, or being ignored altogether. There are some defenses that don't just wear away with time, however, and so Jamie looks both ways, leaning back to peer down the hall, turns around to look behind him, before he faces Claire again, running a hand down his face, beard scraping at his skin.

He points to himself.

"You talking to me?"

It's meant to appear feigned, forced, but there is some level of genuine astonishment in his voice, nonetheless.

Whatever smile is plastered stupidly across her face immediately falls and dissolves. It doesn't crumble into disrepair and her face doesn't collapse completely, but that expression on his face isn't the one that she was expecting. Claire isn't entirely sure what she was expecting. She of all people knows that when you leave the City and come back, you usually come back changed. If his tone was all she had to go on, she would be able and willing to settle for some sort of change but a change still coupled with Jamie's overall attitude and demeanor, something that she got used to, something that she looked forward to, liked even.

But she can see his face and she can see the way that he looks at her and away from her, and she can put that with his tone of voice and she's perceptive enough to know when people aren't who they left as. Claire feels Jamie's movements and perceptions up and down her spine as if they're wired together like distorted puppets. Maybe it's presumptuous of her, but she doesn't care, letting go of the doorknob to come out into the hallway with tentative familiarity, looking him up and down, peeking into all his corners.

He's still Jamie, and that's all that matters to her.

"It's Claire, and there's no one else out here. Of course I'm talking to you, Jamie." Cheap carpet crushes under her toes and the points of her bare feet, and Claire reaches out to touch Jamie's elbow, like she's approaching some wild animal that might turn and ravage. "Are you - what are you - did you even -" She moves her hand to touch his face, and his beard is alien and unreal. It feels intrusive to stay there so long so she pulls back and wraps her hand around his wrist instead. "Did you forget?"

She doesn't know what she's asking, what he could have possibly forgot, but that's up to him to fill in. All of Jamie's blanks are his own.

He peers down at her hand, tilting his head slightly and tempted to yank it away, because the touch licks at his nerves like flames and he just can't deal with that much contact, and so suddenly. But it's the concern that he's always had for other people, that it's always been far easier for him to act on behalf of another person than for himself, that makes him hesitate. He's making her suffer enough backlash, so why pile on more when in all honesty, it doesn't even hurt him to have his wrist grabbed onto like that? He just can't seem to remember the last time it happened, that's all, and trying to come up with a memory makes his brows furrow more still.

His beard tickles, now.

"It was a joke, for the most part. Have you gotten weak in my absence?" Jamie quips, now trying to draw comparisons between this version of Claire Bennet and the one he last saw, practically a year ago. She fits easily into what he can recall, like a missing puzzle piece--the only problem being that there are a lot of other pieces missing right now as well, so in the great scheme of things, he feels far from complete. "I remember. And note that you probably want to wash your hands, now."

She's perceptive enough to pick up on the hesitation, and she's hesitant enough herself to pull her hand away once he starts talking. Claire isn't a person who likes her personal space violated, despite violating the personal space often enough to make her a hypocrite, and new versions of people returning when old ones have become the norm make her as uncomfortable as they do curious, concerned. She doesn't know how Jamie now will react to her now when all she has in her mind is how he would have reacted then, and even though it's such a small thing, she can't stop staring at his beard, his face, his eyes. For someone who still fundamentally looks the same under a coat of change, Jamie is so different, and it leaves her feeling naked in front of someone she always felt comfortable with.

The concern wins out, though, and she shoves it away, buries it underneath anything and everything that she might be feeling. This isn't about her, and she realizes that with little trouble, looking up at him. "Never. Just testing you," she says, with a cheeky smile that doesn't do anything to hide what she's really thinking. It fades quickly enough, and she looks at the floor, at her bare feet and his shoes. When she glances up again, her face is clear. "Come inside, okay?"

It's not a question, necessarily, though it's phrased like one. He'll come inside or she'll drag him inside. And to prove this, to prove that she doesn't care what he says about himself, she grabs his wrist again and pulls lightly, back toward the open door.

He's making her uncomfortable. He's making her uncomfortable and he's so damn sorry for it, sorry like he is for just about everything these days, aside from God or the laws of probability or genetics or whatever it was that resulted in Jamie having the ability he did, in being put through that mess of a childhood he had. Those things, he has to admit, are completely outside of his control, and so at them, he can be as angry as he wants, can shake his fist, which helps to release some of the stress, even if it doesn't do anything else. Because really, if everything was honestly his fault, he would've killed himself long ago. Instead, now, his shoulders hang with guilt, and it makes him look shorter, smaller, like he's hiding from the light, too many days spent in the shade, wherever he'd be the least noticeable.

"Yeah, sure."

But he's still sorry as he toes off his shoes and leaves them on the doormat inside of the apartment, treading lightly into the apartment, oddly scared even to breathe funny. It's just that being sorry doesn't often stop Jamie Madrox from taking the path of least resistance, and if he ends up running away now, Claire will just track him down somehow, like the way she did even when he was far down in the Underground. Hah. Those times were good, the ones where all he had to worry about were monsters wandering the mazes below.

Besides, part of him? Has really wanted to see this kind of support. Wanted to be... wanted, essentially, even if he can see the hesitation hanging around Claire like a raincloud just waiting to spill over.

Of course, the other part wants her to end up blaming him, as well. That's the only way he can be adequately punished for his deeds.

"Sorry for the mess I'm definitely dragging into this place. I'll help clean it up afterwards."

The quick snap of a shut up hangs off of her tongue like sour candy, filling up her mouth and her throat and her sinuses. At least that's one thing about him that hasn't changed: Claire wants to shake him, to hit him, to make him realize that he isn't as worthless as he thinks he is or feels he is, that he's important to people, important to her. It might be a selfish disposition, but it's the truth and Claire isn't going to apologize for it, dropping his wrist and pointedly not moving for the sink as she leads him into the kitchen. She'll refrain from washing her hands for a week if it'll instill any sense into him.

"You don't have to clean anything up. This place has seen worse messes, trust me, I don't think you trailing in a few footprints is going to make much of a difference. Mr. Muggles has been getting into the laundry and the trash and just... you know," she trails off, yanking out a chair though she doesn't motion for him to sit down or even stand back for him to be able to get to the chair. It strikes her that maybe she's been creepy, behaving a little odd, like she's supporting him over pins and needles and one wrong move will result in dropping him and popping him in the process. They are all of them fragile, hairline fractures hiding underneath their skin. Jamie's are more apparent and obvious, sometimes.

Claire shuffles around the counter and wets a towel from the faucet quick enough to pass as a nervous gesture. "You can sit down," she eventually says, coming back around to stand near the chair, near Jamie, to make sure that he doesn't run. Please sit down. She relaxes herself, watches his face, his movements, getting familiarized again, and then smiles. Please sit down. Please trust me. Claire takes half a step toward him and then stops, resulting in a strange disjointed motion. She stops smiling. "Tell me how to help."

He trails after her, sensing her anger, although unlike the others, hers is contained for the most part, simmering like a pot on a stove, so maybe if he doesn't touch it too much, it won't boil over. The little self-deprecating things are what she doesn't want to hear, that much he's aware of, but it's not so easy for him to stop because more than anything else, it's a type of mannerism that's been instilled into him now. He doesn't have to say anything, he just realizes that there are a lot of things that he's done to hurt a lot of people, best to remove himself from the picture before he does even more damage, because he's not the type of person built for happily ever afters. You can't fake confidence--Jamie's tried, he's tried all his life, but jokes and wit only go so far before they start being seen as a defense mechanism.

Her words immediately tempt him to reply. Honestly, of course. That she can't help. That unless she can turn back time to the day that his dupe had sex with Terry, that she can't really do anything. Or, well, to be honest, that probably isn't even enough. If it wasn't getting Terry pregnant, it was bound to be something else. But since she'd spot a lie on his part from a mile away, he goes with avoidance, instead. Maybe she'll take the hint.

"Well, I was thinking that breath mints would help. It's like I'm almost afraid to talk for fear of bowling you over."

She lingers a moment, shifting the towel - checkered and worn and frayed on one side from where Mr. Muggles ripped it out of her hands and played tug-of-war - from one hand to another before she just leaves it on the counter next to her closed laptop, moving toward the dining room table, small but secure and littered with personal effects, possession of the people who live and breathe and laugh here, to pick a pack of Big Red out of her messenger bag. Claire tosses it to him from where she is. It's her own form of avoidance, of putting off the inevitable for as long as she can, of being able to stand in the dining room light and pretend that it's a bubble that won't break, that her apartment is much the same. It's the same mentality that she had whenever she said that she could and would fix him. Only now she's less than sure, and that bothers her, maybe scares her.

"I have a little brother," she eventually goes on, as if this explains everything, to look up and wander back into the kitchen, watching him out of her peripheral, making sure that he doesn't leave or dissipate. A glass of water appears under her hand in an instant, and Claire is back in front of him and practically forcing him to sit into the chair that she's pulled out for him. "I can get you a toothbrush in a little bit. And a shower, too. For now your bad breath isn't going to scare me off or knock me over."

She plants herself directly in front of him, close enough that she can reach the back of his chair while standing in front of him, though she doesn't try. Claire doesn't go for the towel again, but she does press the glass of water into his hand before letting go of it, trusting him not to drop it. Her hands are so small but they seem to take up so much space as turns his face this way and that, and she tries not to squint like she's searching the pages of a magazine for his face, but she does anyway. "So what happened?"

It comes out more conversational than she intended. They are the products of people who frequently have complicated conversations.

Where Claire is testing the waters, Jamie struggles not to run off. Sitting is the first step to this, he supposes, as he picks at the shiny wrapping on the piece of gum and pulls it out, the white powder making his fingers look even grimier by comparison, but with all of the dupes that he's sent places in the past decades, Jamie's built up a decent immune system for himself, so he just sticks the piece in his mouth and thinks. All the while, he's sure that Claire is moving closer, toes sifting through the banks as she takes in every reaction of his, including the delays and hesitation. He's had people care that much before, or at least he's been under the impression that people cared so much before. Rahne, for instance, although she disproved that the moment she left X-Factor and the team. Rictor, for instance, until Jamie realized that the concept of bros before hos really didn't stick with the guy, that Rictor was probably mad at Jamie on some level for driving Rahne away (as, clearly, such a thing could only ever be Jamie's fault), and so would clearly side with Terry on what'd happened. Layla, for instance, until Jamie had ended up sending her to a future full of camps, and that she'd eventually escaped wasn't much of a consolation prize. Guido, for instance, until even he hadn't really bothered to do much of anything other than pull him out of a goddamn closet.

He's invested in people before, but after being rebuked so many times, Jamie almost thinks that it's completely fair for him to doubt them now. And since that line of thought isn't the most pleasant, he moves onto thinking about Claire's family. They're still not here, are they? The father that was her hero, the mother that held everything together, the idiot little brother. She deserves to have them arrive, and they deserve to never step foot in the place. Eh. As always, the best solution would be for her to return home, right?

But she likes this place better, he remembers. In some ways, anyway, but Jamie's always had somewhat of the impression that Claire isn't the type to bask in golden opportunities--instead, the type to charge right through them.

"I took a baby away from his mother," he replies, picturing a little hand grasping a mother's finger, and an eyebrow finely arched. Feeling the sensation of that same hand grabbing onto his own, before falling right through, a flash of light, and prior to the nails which raked down his chest, feelings of being in the womb, of the light from all sides being muted, of a sickly sense of claustrophobia mixed with security, safety punctuated by the beating of a mother's heart. Jamie covers his mouth with his hand again, eyes wet, and he hates having to relive this so many times. But he deserves that, doesn't he? "Took him to a place where she'd never see him again."

She's made mistakes for a reason, because she pushes too hard and too much with the people that she cares about, because she expects so much out of everyone, out of herself. Claire pushes and pushes and pushes until people break where she can't. There is no threshold for the things she can take, because she is indestructible. It doesn't matter how much her heart or stomach ache, how often her eyes sting, because in the end it's never about 'what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.' Nothing can kill her, there is no limit for what will push her to be stronger, nothing to compare it to, and she expects that sometimes of other people, of those she places on pedestals, even when she knows that they can break.

Claire doesn't know if Jamie's broke, and she doesn't want to press her fingers to the wounds to staunch the bleeding if it means doing more damage than good. You can't change a person who doesn't want to be changed: it's a fundamental concept of psychology. Most of the time, all she senses is the distilled indifference, the indecisiveness, all his paths laid down on the table like overturned domino pieces staring up at her with naked faces.

And other times she feels the pressure and tension pulling in him like a bungee cord, the want and urge to be wanted and cared for. It's not her job to pull it back, wind it up, but she does, arching an eyebrow at him, then both eyebrows. She drinks down his reaction to his own retelling like a dehydrated bastard in Hell being offered a glass of water. The chair behind her bumps against her thighs and it's a long time before Claire says anything, watching him with deer eyes.

"I don't..." She squints at him as she tries to comprehend, touches her hairline with careful fingers, the underside of his forearm. It dawns on her, in an instant, the things he's told her in the past and his nature as Jamie Madrox in the present, his appearance, his reaction. Claire wants to embrace him, but she's too afraid to do it. "But you didn't - it wasn't like you did it intentional - I'm sor - It wasn't your fault, you have to know that, right? You wouldn't look like this if it, if you'd planned or... maliciously. Jamie, I'm so sorry. Can I -"

She babbles. It's all that she can ever be, in these situations.

There are a lot of discoveries that Jamie comes to at any given moment, and here is no exception. For all the time that he's spent pondering, questioning, lamenting, there's still a new facet of him that arises now when he goes over all of this with another person, Claire holding the racket at a different angle than Jamie ever could on his own, such that the ideas go ricocheting once more. Why is Jamie so sorry? It's not all because of what's happened to Terry, because Jamie Madrox knows that he's too self-centered for that to be the case, has seen enough self-serving dupes in his life to know that he's not one of the top supporters on anybody's donation list. But then, flashes of a little boy with curly brown hair rise up again, and Jamie grins for just a moment, that flash of realization that always seems to appease him, although this time it doesn't last for long.

"I'd almost made a family for myself. I remember telling you about John before, how he was a dupe I'd sent out to find faith, and he found a family of his own. Wife, had a son, said that if I'd only lived part of his life, I'd realize that it's fulfilling, I'd never want to leave it," Jamie recounts, lips taut. "Rictor jokes about me and women, but a lot of it's true. My libido, it seems, came out in the form of a dupe once, knocked both Terry and Monet up in one night--literally--and although it didn't take, with Monet, a little over half a year later, and Terry gave birth to a baby boy. Looked exactly like me, they said. Towards the end of her pregnancy, she asked me if I'd marry her, and I said yes. Without hesitating. And that's a big step for me, and you know that."

His stare bores a hole into the wall, and now in place of the ticking, there's the pitter-patter of claws against the hardwood floor. Safety on, safety off.

"Turns out, my dupes can't have kids. They just end up creating more dupes. Monet's body rejected it, even though towards the beginning, she showed signs of morning sickness. But Terry, who... had a relationship with one of my dupes, years and years ago, Terry, who's always been the familial sort and probably still dreamed of getting hitched, she accepted the dupe, and her body went through all the motions of a full-blown pregnancy. But when I held the baby..."

He almost snorts, although it comes out as a quick exhale instead. "You know what happens with my dupes. And it's irreversible."

West springs immediately to mind, confusing and disturbing all at once, his emotions worn on his sleeve but changing so consistently and sporadically that Claire could barely keep track of them at times. In the end, West had been a disappointment, had let her down in the worst of ways even if, looking back on it, he had been right. She doesn't want to give any sort of indication that Jamie is capable of letting her down, even if he has in the past. Disappointment is a facet of life, just like pain and love and hatred, but that doesn't mean she has to rub it in with spit and blood and sweat, and that doesn't mean Jamie has been a disappointment now or that he ever will be.

She's a good listener, leaning on the counter, attention focused and eyes never leaving his face. It's this way she catches the grin, follows the way that it fades. And she's proud of him, for making a decision like that, for holding pearls in his hand and realizing that what he has is worth something, for realizing that he is worth something. Claire nods when he addresses her directly, but she doesn't smile because she knows there's a huge 'but' hanging over the edge of this story, waiting to swallow all of it. Mr Muggles noses against her bare feet, and Claire looks down only for a moment. When she looks back up, the rose colored glasses are off, and the wet press of her dog's nose is gone from her skin.

Claire feels cold all over for him, doused with freezing water, dunked under the surface. She looks at his knee and nods, her mouth twisting into a frown. "I really am very sorry," she stresses, and she does mean every word of it, every syllable. She almost wants to press her fingers against his chest but it's a fleeting thought and she doesn't want to draw attention. "I feel like saying that completely negates the gravity of the situation. Like I can say that I'm sorry all that I want but that's never going to make it better. I know sometimes all you want is for someone to listen and to not offer advice, but... you do know it's not your fault, right? You aren't blaming yourself? This is something completely out of your control in every sense of the word. You aren't -"

They aren't blaming you, right?

She should know better.

"Oh, it's my fault alright. Maybe I didn't intend for it, maybe I never would've wanted to take that baby away from Terry, but if you look back at the process, the blame always falls to me, Claire. If I had never held him. If I had never had sex with them. If I had not been so careless as to release a dupe that I wasn't aware of. If I had never gone after John. If I had never taken off the suit, all those years ago, which was able to suppress this ability of mine. If I hadn't been born the way I was, or born at all," Jamie rattles off, crazed, sanity running down as though through an hourglass, because no matter what part of him says that he didn't mean to do it, in the long run, intent surely wasn't all that mattered. "Doesn't matter if I meant to do it or not, I was the one who ripped Terry's heart out, and I deserve to be punished for it. And if I continue living the way I am, it's only a matter of time before I screw someone else over. That's what this power does. That's what God or whatever it is ruling over us has done."

He rests his head in his hands, almost as though in prayer, although his words betray him, black against white. "What he giveth, he can taketh away. I can't deal with it, Claire, and it's starting to feel unfair for anyone to say that I should, not that anyone's bothered. They're doing fine, all of them. I call them, now and again, but they didn't stop her when Terry tried to prise and rip the baby out of me, and they're not stopping me from heading in the other direction now. Which is fine, and in the long run, it makes things easier. And maybe you'll hate me for this too, Claire, but I'm here to tell you that you lost your bet, that you can't fix what's been broken too many times, and the very moment I'm left alone back there again, it'll be over. Maybe that's how to keep me happiest."

The smell of gunfire is still on his coat, and Jamie inhales deeply, eyes shutting as he recites. "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep no more. And by a sleep, so say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished."

Claire's face changes by degrees, and her eyes burn as much as her throat does as the gravity of what he's said sinks in. And if he looks at her, he won't find Claire Bennet upset, because she isn't upset. She is furious.

"What are you saying?" she asks, and her voice comes out lower and steadier than she imagined or planned. She doesn't stare at him like some demure child, some little girl playing grown-up since she was forced to. Claire is forceful and pushing and angry. Her first reaction is to slap him, hit him, shove him as hard as she can, but she's not dealing with his dupes when she can barely deal with him. She kicks the leg of his chair instead, away from the counter so that it doesn't shove his back into the marble, and she kicks it with surprising strength, the feet groaning against the floor.

Her mouth twists sharp and acidic. "The very moment you're left alone back there again, it'll be over? That you want to die? Screw you. That's complete bull, Jamie. Maybe it'll make you happy, and maybe it'll make all your pain stop, but what about everyone else? Being at odds with someone doesn't mean that they think you're better off dead, that they wouldn't miss you 'til they were sick, and saying something like that is the most selfish thing I've ever heard come out of your mouth, and it's damning yourself for something that you have no control over." She has to pause to catch her breath, and Claire feels her mouth pull downward, tugging like a baited hook, but she doesn't give into it, and she doesn't let it stop her. "I told you before, Jamie, people have died because of me. Terrible things happen everyday because of the way people are, but you can't just live your life blaming yourself for everything that's happened. You took your suit off because you wanted to live as normally as possible, and you wanted to hold your baby because he was you. Not even a dupe. But a part of you. You wanted a life and you want to be happy, doesn't that say something? Your ability doesn't make things your fault, and you can't control what God hands you in life, and you certainly can't blame yourself for it."

Claire breathes, her head swimming. She hasn't been this angry with someone in so long that it physically hurts to try to think of it. And it's sweet and delicious and a licking fire of an emotion, and that's terrifying. Anger bubbles over so easily, boiling down her belly and spine, and she still wants to hit him, wants to pinch and pull him until he understands, but it's impossible, and she's left holding half a hand of cards and her hands shaking, belly cartwheeling, knees unsteady in the face of his self-loathing.

It strikes her as conditional, what she's saying, in that she would never say the same thing about Sylar regardless of circumstance. But this is Jamie, and she would make a whole lot of exceptions for him if she thought that it would help. "I haven't lost my bet," she finally says, calm enough to look him directly in the eye. "And I'm not giving up on your for something that wasn't even your fault to begin with. You couldn't chase me away before, and you're going to have a hell of a time trying to now. Maybe I can't fix it or fix you, but I can prove to you that you're worth more than a bullet to the brain or long walk off a short pier."

There's also the unspoken threat and promise that only someone of Claire's caliber can make: If you kill yourself, I will bring you back every single time.

The jolt from underneath him, chair legs scraping against the floor, doesn't startle Jamie, although it does serve nearly to top him over--he's not making much of an effort to keep himself upright, to hold his spine steady, so he allows himself to be thrown into the side of the chair a bit by the momentum, as though he's had a few too many beers at the bar. There's a part of him that's grateful, endlessly grateful for this, because he's been on the receiving end of a lot of yelling, but always arguing for the other side, even if not always in the form of words--the splint he wears on his ring finger, broken almost by Terry's sheer will, is evidence of that. His lips tug down, his jaw clenches, and now and again his tongue comes out to run over his lips, too chapped from weeks of walking, through multiple states, walking only because it's too far to run. But every last drop of that gratitude is tainted with doubt, because maybe he's coloring the story too much in his favor, maybe if Claire simply saw the look on Terry's face, she'd get it.

Jamie can live with a lot of things, but living with causing that much pain to a woman who, all things considered, he might've loved, wanted to spend the rest of his life with, he just can't. Living while knowing that none of them are going after him, knowing that all of them are still at the office, knowing that no one's going to miss him--what's the goddamn point? He wipes his face with his hand, tears clearing paths in the grime.

"They won't know," he promises her, with a watery smile. "They won't want to find out. Terry scratched until I bled, threw me against the floor until I could've sustained a concussion, and the rest of them watched, Claire. They told her that there was no point, but the fact of the matter is that they watched, and they didn't lift a finger--it was the doctors at the hospital that ended up pulling her away at all. None of the team stepped forward, even knowing that leaving Terry to non-mutants is dangerous, puts them in danger. Terry made it clear, that if I ever went back, if she ever saw me again, she'd break my neck."

He raises his hand, examining his broken finger almost curiously. "She made me that promise. And that's like setting an ultimatum, because only the most extenuating of circumstances will ever break that group apart, and I don't want to be the thing that does. When I call and hear them answer, 'X-Factor Investigations,' that just reaffirms my beliefs. If I have no one left, why can't I be selfish? If there is no one left to be generous for, why do I still have to suffer?"

His hand lowers to his lap again, fingers entwining as well as they can. "You can't make me remember anything you say here, when I get back. Make me feel alive again, Claire, but I'm still a dead man walking when I get back. I'm sorry."

She tries so hard to stay angry, to stay spiteful and offended and so, so, so angry, but it's impossible. Like it always is with her father - the one who raised her, not the one she bears unfortunate biological relation to - Claire can't stay angry for long, and if she does stay at all angry, it's on his behalf as opposed to angry at him. The anger is still there, but it simmers and stews, and mostly she just feels frustrated and upset on the surface, because maybe she can't fix this. Maybe he's right and she never even had a chance from the beginning.

That only serves to make her even angrier.

Claire rubs at her face, under her eyes and up over her temples and back into her hair, pushing it away from her face. She's not crying, but she feels like she might. It's not even that Jamie's crying, though that has a lot to do with it. It's more about being unable to find fault in his logic at all. But she tries anyway, staring at his hands, and saying after too much silence, "Don't let someone else's stupid judgment and dumb mistakes dictate how you're going to follow through on the rest of your life. Because that's what they made, they made a mistake. You didn't do anything, and as childish as it sounds, it's not fair that you have to suffer, and I don't know why you do but -"

She looks down at her feet, at Jamie's dirty pants and his feet and her kitchen floor and feels so small. Jamie is too beyond her scope or reach. He is too far away for her to grab but like a child in a lullaby, she keeps pulling for him. Claire can't stop the lump from welling up in her throat, and she's not equipped to deal with this. None of them are. "I don't want you to die," she says, grabbing his unbroken fingers and squeezing hard enough to break them before letting go. "Maybe that's selfish, but it's selfish for all the right reasons. Those people don't deserve you, as stupid and, and stubborn and self-destructive as you can be, and there is someone out there and - when the rest of them realize what they've done and the mistakes that they've made, you'll need to be around to laugh in their faces, won't you? You can't lose your heartbeat over them."

And she'll talk to Sylar about this. It doesn't matter what he did or will do to her or to other people. If there's a way to make Jamie remember, then she will find it come hell or high water. She hopes that shows on her face, because she's making it a point to look at him when she talks, no matter what her face looks like.

"Let's look on the bright side," he immediately replies, grabbing after her hands when she lets go, grasping them and running calloused pads over her knuckles, and it's interesting how easily her hands fit in his grip, when hers could hardly spread over the width of his hands at all. Appropriate, Jamie thinks, because all in all, there are certain things in his grasp which could so easily appease her, while he's not so sure if the opposite will ever be the case. She's got a stronger will to fight, while his might have died years ago, back in France. "John doesn't plan on giving up. He'll pull through, he'll become the new Jamie Prime, so I won't be gone for good. Layla apparently meets one of us in the future, so no matter which one it is, there's that."

When he hears himself speak, the more and more certain he becomes that this won't help her either, like offering the consolation prize from a cereal box in exchange for something invaluable. "I'm not going anywhere here either, so you don't have to worry, you shouldn't have to worry, and I should have kept my mouth shut. The City won't let me die in the long run," he reassures Claire, letting go of her hands to run his fingers through her blonde tresses, pulling her head closer so that he can press his lips, unmoving, against her forehead. "It's nice to have ambition, Claire, and to want to win a game, to want to laugh in someone's face. I just don't think that's what I'm gearing up for. Always better when you have someone to laugh with, right?"

He lets go, hand once more rubbing down his face, drying the tears, before he smiles--the corners of his eyes don't contract--and pats his knees. "So, how about that shower? Does anyone in your apartment shave?"

Her heart is in her throat, heavy for him, feeling guilt where the others won't and can't. Claire doesn't squeeze his hands or push her fingers into his or do anything at all when he grips her own, just lets them lie there unflinching and warm in his palms. She doesn't react when he leans their heads together, presses a kiss to her forehead, like some secret they've shared that can't be undone. Because this can't be undone, and he can't take it back, and she's not going to forget about it either. She is numb and has all the life of an old tree stump.

Claire blinks, and the moment is over, her spine slinking against the counter uncomfortably as she pulls herself together, looking up into the soft glare of the light to hide the shine behind her eyes. "Yeah," she says in an exhale. "Alex and Zach. There should be clothes, Zach's more your size." Her tone and speech is disconnected and she leaves him there to get jeans, an undershirt, and fresh underthings from a laundry basket on the couch, her palm passing over his arm and shoulder as she leaves and when she comes back. Claire holds the clothes out to him like some sort of peace offering. "These should be okay for now, and Alex's stuff should be in the bathroom. Come on."

She walks like a ghost and doesn't wait for him to follow her but does pause halfway through the living room, her bare feet sinking like rocks in mud into the soft carpet. Though she doesn't turn to look at him, she's sure he can hear her when she says, "For the record... I don't know John. And John isn't you, no matter what you say."

I'll fix it, she thinks, because that is her superpower, and that is what God gave her.

The clothes create a gentle weight in his hands, light and soft, as Jamie nods his appreciation, one corner of his lips quirked up, because it's weird to be wearing his former employee's clothes, isn't it? He'll have to find some kind of job, if he plans on living here again in the City, maybe something Underground, because even if that's the first place Rictor's bound to look, it's still a place that affords a lot more privacy than the Overground. This is something that, of course, he doesn't plan on telling Claire, bearing what happened last time in mind. He'll just make sure to visit often, with crisp, clean clothes, nothing to suggest the grime that he plans on camouflaging himself with while down there. Briefly, he wonders what Rahne would say if she knew, if she would get upset at all. Or what Layla would say. None of them were really his first choice, though, and Jamie feels despicable saying that, gut churning, but thoughts often come unbidden and not much can be done to stop them.

"Thanks. I'll be sure to return them soon, once I find a place and see if the bank'll still let me withdraw money before quitting," he smiles, following Claire until one foot's in the bathroom. Of course, triggered by that need to have the last word, he ponders John as well, certain words echoing in his mind. John had told Jamie much of the same thing, that Jamie might as well keep on living because there'd be something greater, perhaps not divine, but a greater scheme to work towards.

But all Jamie can ever see, in looking at John, is that one of his dupes, one of his dupes managed to skedaddle and create a far happier life for himself than Jamie could ever have imagined. How is that fair?

"When one of my dupes that I'd sent to the future died, I received all of his memories. Maybe the same will happen with John."

Claire lets herself into the bathroom ahead of him, sliding between Jamie and the door frame, going for towels under the sink that don't necessarily belong to anyone. She catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror and wonders what's become of her. Over her shoulder she can see Jamie and it's striking again how different he looks. She wants to know where he's been, what he's done, but that's a can of worms she doesn't want to open right now, when that simmering urge to tear him a new one is still hiding under her skin.

Instead she tosses the towels on the lid of the toilet seat, then goes rummaging around in Alex's drawer for a razor and shaving cream. She's not really sure how this process works, but it stops her from looking at Jamie while she talks. "Back home, just as soon as I left here for there, actually, my uncle came to see me after that whole thing with Sylar. I don't know if you've met Peter, but he's pretty much the standard that I hold people up to after my father. I can't explain what was different about him, but I know now and I knew then that the Peter I was talking to wasn't the Peter that I know. As it turns out, that Peter was from the future, and even though he had all the memories of the Peter from my time, even though he was still Peter in appearance and voice, he wasn't Peter."

She straightens up and stares at him in the mirror, her mouth set and her eyes unblinking. "You can dress a pig up in sheep's clothing, Jamie, but it's still just a pig in a cheap wool suit. John will never be you, just as much as any one of your dupes alone will never be you. You can dress Peter up in Peter's skin, but it will never be Peter. And you can dress John up in Jamie's skin, give him his voice, his memories, his laugh, but he's never gonna be Jamie. He will always be John."

It's a precarious situation, because Claire realizes that she can't leave the bathroom without passing by him again, but she stands by her word, laying the shaving kit on the counter with gentle care and moves to turn the shower on, the dull roar of water filling up the silence.

There's a similar rush of water that comes from the sink as Jamie washes his face down a little bit first, water trailing down his cheeks and dripping from his stubble, trails of dirt slowly making their way down the drain. He picks up the aerosol, lathering a good amount of shaving cream onto one cheek before he starts working away at it with a razor. He's never really let his beard grow out this much before, such that he doesn't really know where the bristles end and skin begins, and if there ends up being some cuts that he makes along the way, Jamie won't be surprised. For a couple of minutes, he's blissfully ignorant of everything else, simply focusing on not cutting himself--a nice reminder of times before, when even as the world seemed to be crumbling down around all of the team, there was still enough time to make sure that they looked good, all the while. Habits picked up from Monet, perhaps.

"Maybe my woolen coat has already cheapened, Claire," he murmurs, voice slightly muffled as he contorts his face, stretching the skin taut where necessary to ease the shaving. "He wasn't Peter because you hadn't been with him up to that point in the future, right? Well. A lot of time has passed already since I left the City, for me, at least. So in a way, it's like I've arrived from the future, isn't it? However time works in this little bubble of a dimension we've got here."

More lather is sprayed out of the can, and Jamie works on the other side, a little more quickly and with abandon. "I can see how hesitant you've been around me, Claire. I don't blame you. It's already remarkable that things have fallen back into place as much as they have. But I'm not the same Jamie, right? Not the Jamie who was your boss, who you pulled aside for turkey sandwiches, who got embarrassingly cursed along with you, once upon a time. If nothing else, the markings on my face should make that clear, even more than the beard, even more than my hobo attire."

He gestures with his free hand, down the lines of black on his face, marking an M, shaped almost like lashes from a whip--although it's just a tattoo, really.

"Right after it appeared, along with my memories from that dupe in the future, I spent a lot of time covering it with makeup. I don't know how necessary that is, anymore."

Her cheeks don't even burn, and she moves away again, wiping away some of the steam that's clouded the shower door. Explaining isn't going to get her anywhere, and Claire knows that, but it's hard not to try. When she turns around there's something new to interest her anyway, startle her out of anger and into some uncharted emotion she's never had to put a name to, and her eyes follow the black markings over his face like she's seeing battle scars. She stares at his face in the mirror from halfway across the room.

"He wasn't Peter because he was different. Because he'd experienced things differently than the rest of us had. He was a different person entirely. That future is closed, and his being in our time at all messed things up and -" She pinches the bridge of her nose, and for a second she can still feel the saw across her skull. When her hand falls back to her side, she's angry again, and Claire moves to his side at the sink to gather water in her palm and then throw it up to splash in his face. "It's not the same. It's not the same at all. You're different, and you've changed, and things have happened to you but you're still Jamie. The things that make you who you are fundamentally aren't any different. If I shook you down to your DNA, you would still read Jamie. I'm not the same Claire that you knew before I left, but I'm still Claire. People change, but that doesn't make who they were before the change becomes cheaper."

She pulls one of the hand towels off the rack and wipes cream off of the collar of his shirt, leaves the towel there. "That's your decision to make. It's a terrible tattoo, and it's ugly, and if I could take if off of you, I would, but I can't, and I can't make that choice to cover it up or not cover it up for you. When I look at you, when I talk to you, I see Jamie Madrox. I don't see you for what you can do or what you were branded for. You're Jamie. End of story."

"Now you're not making much sense," Jamie mutters, pausing for a moment as scrape, scrape, off comes the mustache from his upper lip. "I send dupes everywhere, helter-skelter, so that they can experience different realities, different lives, learn different things and come back to give me the collective. Shake them down to their DNA, all of them are still Jamie. Ask them about their time in X-Force, and they'll tell you the same thing, ask them about when their parents died, and they'll tell you the same thing. I have dupes escape every day, I have dupes return every day, each one of them with a piece of the overall puzzle, but that makes me constantly changing, a crazier ride than the biggest mood swing you'll ever find."

He's shaven close enough for his tastes, so Jamie dunks his face in the sink, splashing water as the cream falls in dollops into the sink, pearly white swirls running down the drain.

"I've experienced some things from alternate realities, those that the rest of X-Factor will never see. I was working to make this tattoo one of those alternate realities. It's from a concentration camp, many years into the future, where they round up all mutants, force this ugly piece of work onto their faces, herd them together like so much cattle. In order to prevent it from happening, we needed to know how it came about."

Done with his face, Jamie then turns, back faced to Claire, as he takes off his coat, his pants, left in an undershirt and boxers. Peering over his shoulder, he notes. "I'm Jamie. John's Jamie. He's just a part of me that I ran free and without for some time, and I'm a part of him that he never came home to."

He climbs into the shower, dressed in his undergarments, pulls the shower curtain shut just in case she still wanted to talk more, because Jamie gets the feeling that if he kicked her out to let him strip, she wouldn't have snuck back in. The boxers and undershirt are tossed over the bar of the shower curtain, slightly wet, just enough to drip.

Claire narrows her eyes, almost defensive, because in her mind she makes perfect sense. There's no question to her what or who Jamie is, and even if he has one million personalities, he's still the same to her fundamentally, and Jamie Prime is still the one that she wants to see at the end of the day. But Claire functions on emotion, is programmed to run by her heart and not her head or her gut. Even her ability is made to protect, but it doesn't extend so far as to pass the border or realm of understanding, and that's where she falls short. She travels down a one-lane highway, and as much as she can reconcile and comprehend some of the things that Jamie has done, there are certain things she sees her way. Even after seeing dupes pop out, after talking to some of them, it's still like talking to different people to her, and that will never change.

When she looks at Jamie, she sees Jamie. There are no dupes involved until one pops out, just a singularly frustrating man she feels like she can't reach at all, a singularly frustrating man suddenly standing in front of her in his underwear, his face a reverse five o'clock shadow. "Alright, Jamie," she says, blinking and turning around once he's in the shower, only turning back to pull his clothes down from the rod and wad them up into a ball before throwing them into the hamper. She feels the gun in a pant leg, pulls it out and holds it in hands too familiar with firearms to be surprised.

At the door, Claire lingers, and maybe he can't hear her over the pounding of the water, but she says it anyway, because she's thinking it and because she's stubborn, and because she has to have the last word as much as he does. "But there's a reason they're the dupes, and you're the prime." She leaves the bathroom but keeps the door halfway open, sits on the floor with her feet stretched across the hallway. It doesn't matter how irritated she gets with him or how little she understands him or how little he understands her. She'll sit outside the bathroom door until he comes out pruned and pink, and then she'll dump the gun in her wastebasket and make him anything but a turkey sandwich. And eventually she'll put her arms around his middle and squeeze.

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