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PLAYER INFORMATION
Your Name: Mary
OOC Journal:
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parashotUnder 18? If yes, what is your age?: Over.
Email + IM:
email → burnsaway@gmail.comCharacters Played at Ataraxion: N/A
aim → girlsgetugly
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Claire Bennet
Canon: Heroes
Original or Alternate Universe: Original
Canon Point: End of Season 4, beginning of what would have been Season 5.
Number: Random!
Setting:
Heroes is set in a modern day very similar to our own. The only major difference is that some normal, every day people have adapted beyond the typical degree of evolution, gifting - or cursing - them with special abilities such as regeneration, flight, telekinesis, etc. Some of these abilities occur as a natural genetic anomaly, passed down generation to generation, and others were manufactured, administered with an injection at a young age. Regardless, many of these individuals live in relative secrecy when it comes to their abilities; although, some people have grown increasingly louder and more dangerous over the years.History:
At some time on August 8, 1990, a Texas native named Meredith Gordon gave birth to a healthy baby girl who she named Claire. The father, Nathan Petrelli - a very well-to-do boy from New York City who was set from an early age on a certain path that was near to impossible to deviate from, was not in attendance, nor was he remotely aware of the fact. Nathan's folly in Texas, as Claire was referred to, lived with her mother until she was 18 months old, obviously unaware of her father's existence, until Meredith's apartment caught fire and reportedly killed everyone inside, including Claire. What most people were unaware of was the fact that Meredith was a firebug, in possession of the ability to create and manipulate flame. What even Meredith was unaware of was Claire's ability of rapid cellular regeneration, which saved her from the fire but unfortunately brought her to the attention of an organization known as the Company, an organization which specialized in 'bagging and tagging,' as they referred to it, individuals with genetic mutations, giving them certain abilities - like Claire and Meredith - that normal, unevolved humans did not have the capacity for.
The Company snatched the toddler up, took her to New York City, and put her into Noah Bennet's reputedly capable hands. While Noah and his wife Sandra had been unsuccessfully trying to conceive a child, Mr. Bennet was actually relieved, as he felt that he would not be a good father, and he expressed as much when receiving Claire. His boss, Eric Thompson, was unimpressed, and Claire was given to the Bennets for safekeeping under the condition that she would be brought in, should her ability, which they were momentarily unaware of, manifest. Apprehensive, Noah took Claire back to Sandra, following orders like the dutiful employee he had been labeled. After a short stay in New York - which will be touched on later, so that the timeline doesn't get too muddled early on, thank you, Heroes - Claire went back to Texas with her new family.
In Odessa, she was raised as the Bennets' daughter, eventually welcoming a little brother to bring the grand total of Bennets up to four - not counting the dogs they had growing up. Initially, she wasn't told that she had been adopted, and it wasn't until she was old enough to grasp the concept that Noah brought the subject up with her and discussed it. It was difficult for her to accept the notion at first but sharp and understanding and with Noah's careful handling of the situation, the idea of being adopted quickly became a non-issue. Although Noah had kept his distance from Claire as a baby, over the years the two became more or less inseparable. Every bit a daddy's girl, Claire's relationship with her father has always been strong and loving, even when she's hated him and been unable to trust him. During her childhood, however, while Sandra was raising, breeding, and competing show dogs, Noah was posing as a paper salesman from Primatech paper out of Odessa, a somewhat questionable cover for his continued work for the Company. Claire - along with Sandra and her brother, Lyle - spent most of her childhood under the impression that her father went on frequent business trips when he was really out abducting people she would one day be classified alongside.
Despite all the secrecy surrounding the Bennet household, or perhaps because of it, Claire led a relatively normal life as a child. She attended public school; was initially very close with a boy named Zach who she later abandoned when she became friends with a girl named Jackie Wilcox and started getting very popular; and took an interest in cheerleading at a young age, possibly because it was just one more step on the road to popularity. While not a scholar by any means, she was an okay student, lousy at math, and more or less enjoyed her life, maybe taking it for granted a little bit. Normalcy was a theme, and the Bennets, as far as they knew, were knee-deep in it.
And then Claire's ability manifested.Volume 1
Sixteen* is a terrible age to be for anyone, and Claire spends the entirety of that year discovering and believing that she's some sort of freak of nature. After putting her hand through a pane of glass, Claire is rushed to the hospital for stitches, that kind of injury very probably what caused her ability to kick itself into gear in order to start protecting her. While there is nothing initially suspicious about the injury - it's stitched up and wrapped like any other cut of that kind - after showing the wound to Noah only to find that it was healing much faster than it should have been, Claire's suspicions are aroused just as much as Noah's. It starts small, just cuts and burns here and there, but once Claire realizes that there is something different about her, it isn't long until she's throwing herself off of buildings and asking her old best friend, Zach, to video tape her while he runs into her with his car.
Completely unaware that this phenomenon is happening to others all over the world, the only thing Claire can worry about was herself. She has Homecoming to think about, football games to cheer for, SATs in October, biological parents she wants to meet, and, oh, also she could regrow her bones and spit up bullets. She doesn't have time to wonder about the strange serial killer in the papers (remember this guy), doesn't have time to notice that maybe her father's business trips aren't totally what they seem. This time of her life is completely shrouded in paranoid, obsessive secrecy. Constantly terrified that someone will find out and ship her off to a government lab to be poked and prodded at, she uses Zach selfishly as her only outlet and often takes out her frustrations on him, making promises that she'll talk to him in front of people in order to get him to do what she wants, such as recording her while she runs into a burning train with the intention of testing her body's stamina, only saving a man trapped inside the car she's standing in by accident. In reality, she keeps her distance from Zach as much as she can, keeping up with the popular kids like Jackie and the other cheerleaders and, in particular, Brody Mitchum, Union Wells' quarterback. Secrecy and keeping up appearances is the theme of her life - during Season 1 and all the remaining seasons, really - so much so that whenever the police ask the cheerleader who saved that man from the burning train to come forward, Claire doesn't object or step out of line when Jackie steals her spotlight and claims that it's her.
She probably should have, as it sends events into motion that Claire will later regret, but she doesn't think about it anymore than she has to, really. If only to add insult to injury, the tape that Zach was holding onto, the one of Claire killing herself, like, a thousand times, goes missing, and ends up in Noah's hands, though Claire is never aware of the fact. From his first viewing of the tape on, Noah's protectiveness over Claire only grows that much more intense. Life continues as normal, though, for a little while, at least, with Noah arranging for Claire to meet her birth parents - although that was just another lie, considering the people Claire meets are actually people who work for Noah at the Company, rather than her bio parents - but it comes to a screeching halt one night after an away game, where Claire is kissed by the quarterback, Brody Mitchum. What starts off innocent quickly escalates out of control as Brody gets more and more aggressive, trying to force Claire to have sex with him. Physically no match for someone much broader and taller than her, when she tries to get away, he pulls her back and throws her down, impaling the back of her head on a tree branch and, effectively, killing her. In a panic, he strips her and dumps her body, and she's brought to a morgue where she's identified as a Jane Doe.
If the woman examining Claire's body hadn't been pulled away by a telephone call, Claire's secret might have been let out to the public right then and there. After having the tree branch removed from the back of her head, Claire more or less reboots, like a hard drive, and she wakes up with her chest split wide open and her ribs exposed. Leaving one very alarmed doctor behind, she makes her way back home where she continues to lie to her father and everyone around her, both about her ability and the fact that she was just very nearly raped and murdered by someone she'd considered a friend, if not more. She refuses to let it be just something that happened to her, though, and when she learns that she's not the first person Brody has done this to, she makes it a point to make sure that she'll be the last.
After asking him for a ride home one night after practice, she gets behind the wheel herself and fires questions at him about the circumstances of the night at the bonfire. Brody isn't ashamed of himself in the slightest, and Claire, enraged and empowered and wanting to end the cycle before he can hurt someone else, speeds the car up to 70 miles per hour and crashes it head-on into a concrete wall, knowing that she'll survive and not caring about doing anything other than hurting Brody.
Obviously, Claire comes out of the accident unscathed, and while she never wanted to tell her father about what happened, she eventually explains. Noah, ever protective, assures her that everything will be alright, and has his partner - who has the ability to both erase memories and nullify the abilities of others, known at this point only as the Haitian - completely wipe Brody's memory, so that he doesn't even know his own name. Chalked up to a result of the accident, Claire is labeled a social pariah and is ostracized by many of the people that she's called her friends for years. Zach sticks by her, though, and he even campaigns with the less popular kids in school, who grossly outnumber the popular kids, so that Claire can win Homecoming queen. Finally realizing who her friends really ware and the kind of person that she wants to be, Claire punches her old friend and, basically, leader of the pack, Jackie, in the face when she makes a joke about Zach's potential homosexuality.
Meanwhile, Noah has been following the movements of many of the other people who have manifested abilities. Isaac Mendez is of interest, as he has been painting pictures of the future and several of them involve Claire with her head sawed open, much similar to the MO of the serial killer, Sylar, who had been traveling the country, killing people with abilities and stealing their powers. Peter Petrelli also has taken an interest, as he'd met with a time traveler from the future named Hiro Nakamura, who told him to 'save the cheerleader, save the world.' Peter is actually in Odessa now, hoping to meet this cheerleader and, somehow, save her. Noah, always five steps ahead of everyone else, knows that if Claire goes to the Homecoming game, she'll die. In order to protect her, he forbids her from leaving the house, using Claire punching Jackie in the face as grounds for, well, grounding. Unaware of the real danger she's in, Claire lets Zach talk her into sneaking out of the house and going to the Homecoming game, and Sandra, also thinking that her husband is being unfair, turns a blind eye when she ses Claire and Zach skip across the lawn and take off.
She should have stayed at the house. Although if she had, then not only would she be in no danger, she also never would have bumped into, literally, Peter Petrelli, who arguably has been one of the most influential people in her life. In the locker room, after all the other cheerleaders have left for the halftime show, Jackie and Claire are arguing when the lights go out. It's Sylar, who telekinetically throws Claire into a wall and goes for Jackie. The story of the cheerleader from Texas who pulled a man out of a burning car hadn't gone unnoticed by the monster who had mistakenly pinned Jackie Wilcox to a locker and started to cut open her head. If Jackie hadn't taken credit, she might have survived seventeen, but she did, and Sylar quickly starts to realize that he's killing the wrong girl, especially so when Claire stands up and begins to heal right in front of him. Jackie's last words to Claire, to anyone, are, "Run." And Claire runs -
Right into Peter, who also realized his mistake in thinking Jackie was the cheerleader he was meant to save when Claire emerges, out of breath and covered in blood, with Sylar not far behind. Peter and Sylar struggle, eventually falling far enough for Peter to do something incredibly painful-looking with his legs and pelvis. But as he can the absorb the abilities of others, he starts to heal when he's near Claire. Watching him display the same ability she has, feeling like she's not alone for the first time in her life, Claire is a little bit in awe of Peter. Their official introduction goes something like this:While running to go find help, she runs into Noah, who immediately takes her home. In the kitchen, somewhat alarmingly over a glass of chocolate milk, Noah finally admits that he's known about Claire's ability all this time, that he knows what she and Zach have been doing, and that there are people out there in the world who want what she has and would hurt her to get it. The FBI, involved from the start in the Sylar case, question Claire about that night in the locker room, but she barely gives them anything and asks to talk to Peter, who has been detained after being found at the scene of the crime with blood all over him. She calls him her hero and Noah takes her home, leaving Peter to deal with his own issues and splitting their paths for the time being.
In the days after the Homecoming incident, Zach's memory is wiped in the same way that Brody's had been, as is Lyle's. Claire's memory is meant to be wiped as well, but the Haitian refuses, following orders from someone in a position of higher authority than Noah's. Claire, also following orders, keeps this a secret from her father and pretends not to remember anything about the horrible incident in the locker room, claiming PTSD. In the meantime, she works on rebuilding her relationship with Zach, bringing him to a gravel plant on the outskirts of town where they used to video tape her jumping and regenerating. In this way, she reintroduces him to all the things that he had already known, and this time she keeps the promises she makes him.
With the relative threat of exposure past, Claire focuses all her energy on locating her real birth parents. She and Zach research the conditions of her adoption, and she eventually gets in touch with Meredith Gordon. Skipping school and claiming they are doing research for their biology project on the manatee, Zach and Claire drive to Kermit, Texas, where Claire meets Meredith and the two share the conditions of their abilities with each other. Her home life at the Bennet house becomes strained, though, as Sandra begins experiencing memory problems as a result of having her memories erased so much by the Haitian, the catalyst being exposure after Sylar escapes from Primatech and attacks Sandra at home. Claire begins to hate her father, blaming him for all the problems and bad things that have happened to her family, refusing to accept his excuse that he is only trying to protect them. Sandra gets worse, and is hospitalized with a subdural hematoma.
Claire's growing hatred of her father is only intensified when Matt Parkman and Ted Sprague, two men Noah had kidnapped for the Company, come to the Bennet house with guns, demanding answers. Matt is the more rational of the two, while Ted is, quite literally, a lit fuse. In what is arguably the best episode of Heroes in all four seasons, Claire gets both shot and blown up in order to protect her family, and sort of begins to understand the sort of sacrifices that her father makes just so he can keep her safe, let alone their whole family. Claire's ability is also exposed to Noah's boss, Eric Thompson, and, knowing that he will be expected to bring Claire to the Company for god knows what, Noah makes the Haitian shoot him - while Claire is watching - and then erase any knowledge of where Claire is going so that none of them can be compromised. Claire says goodbye to her father, thinking it may be the last time that she ever sees him, and is expected to board a plane with no promise that she will see her family again.
Ever resourceful, Claire leaves the Haitian at the airport and instead takes a plane to New York, where she she looks up Peter Petrelli but instead finds his mother, Angela, and Claire's grandmother. Angela brings Claire back to the Petrelli mansion, where she comes to understand the greater threat of nuclear explosion in New York City. Peter is eventually delivered to the Petrelli mansion, dead, by Mohinder Suresh, and it's Claire who pulls out a fragment of glass from the back of his head, put there by Sylar, and reboots Peter the same way she had been with the tree branch. Nathan, obviously, is also in attendance at his home in New York, and Claire is able to meet her father and learn that Peter is also her uncle. The plan then is to take Claire to Paris, but she refuses to leave Peter, especially after he absorbs Ted Sprague's power of induced radioactivity. Peter gives her a gun to carry with her in case he ever starts to blow, believing that he is the one who is going to level New York the way Isaac Mendez painted, and he, Claire, and Ted make an attempt to leave New York and prevent any disasters from happening.
Ted is captured by the FBI, and Claire and Peter disappear, trying to leave. Sylar eventually catches up with Ted and takes his ability, and when Peter goes to Nathan for help, both he and Claire learn that Angela and Nathan want Peter to explode and destroy New York so that Nathan, a newly elected congressman, can more or less stroll down the path to the presidency. Peter runs, but Claire can't escape until later, saying that 'the future's not written in stone' before leaping out of a window and joining many of the other lead characters in the show at Kirby Plaza, where Sylar and Peter are fighting. Hiro Nakamura stabs Sylar, knocking him down for the count, but Peter burns bright and is about to explode. Claire pulls her gun and prepares herself to shoot him when Nathan, who can fly, swoops in and flies Peter high above the city. Those left on the ground can only stand and watch as an explosion, so high up in the air, lights the sky up momentarily.
The police arrive, tending to the injured, and Noah leads Claire, who believes Peter and Nathan to both be dead, away, saying that he has a plan.Volume 2
That plan ends up being relocation to Costa Verde, California, under the name Butler. Claire enrolls at the local public high school with strict instructions to be as invisible as possible. Of course, on the first day as she's crossing the street, she is nearly run over by a boy who ends up sitting next to her in class. West Rosen knows from the get go that there is something different about her, whether due to her weird interest in cellular regeneration in newts or possibly catching her popping her bones back into place after doing a back tuck off a tower in the gymnasium. Claire tries her best to blend in and be invisible, not standing up to people the way that she might otherwise, but it's frustrating, and stressful, and she's alone and can't be herself with anyone. She tries to talk to Nathan over the phone, but he's shut himself up with alcohol and can't be bothered. Noah, who is once again lying about what he's doing, keeps up appearances by working at a store called Copy Kingdom but is still in touch with Mohinder Suresh and working against the Company, who would still love to get their hands on Claire.
It's important that she be absolutely perfect in her secrecy, but of course Claire messes up; although, the blame really should be placed on West for lurking around her living room window. Wanting to test her ability after learning that newts can regrow their limbs, Claire cuts her pinky toe off and watches, somewhat horrified, as it grows back. It's only after the process is complete that she looks up and sees West with his face basically pressed against the glass, watching with just as much horror. The next day at school is torture, and West drops comments during class that no one else might understand, but that Claire knows are directed at her. Upset, she leaves the room, and West follows her out. She yells at him, and he manages to shut her up by picking her up and flying off, revealing his own ability. They fly to the beach, and there is a kiss, but Claire is unsure about starting anything with anyone, even though she's thrilled to have found someone she can share this part of herself with. West also fills her in on his past, which includes memories of being kidnapped as a boy by a man in horn-rimmed glasses, who is blatantly Claire's father.
West asks her out on a date, just one, and says that if she still doesn't want to be with him after one date, he'll back off. Claire begrudgingly agrees, and the lies between her and her family, her father specifically, start up again. She goes on a date with West, telling her father that she's walking to the library, and he takes her to the Hollywood sign and asks her to jump off and show him what she can do. She's reluctant but eventually acquiesces and jumps only to be caught by West before she can even hit the ground. When she returns home, she tells her father that she lied to him about where she was going and presents him with a cheerleading release form that she had gotten earlier that day. While she had tried out, the captain, Debbie, made sure that Claire didn't make the cut. Still, Claire tells Noah that she made the squad, and he allows her to join under the condition that she won't date.
She continues to date West. The two come up with a plan to get Claire on the squad, using their abilities and getting Jackie into trouble with the police, who charge her with underage drinking after she claims she saw a boy who could fly, a boy who picked Claire up and dropped her back down onto the ground with a broken neck. With her ability, Claire is obviously unharmed, but Debbie is effectively kicked off the squad and Claire is allowed to join in her stead. Although Claire tells West that he isn't allowed to come to her house - both because she knows she's not allowed to be dating and because she doesn't want West to see that the man who abducted him as a child is her father - he shows up one morning and makes breakfast for her and her mother, while Noah is out of town 'on business.' West also shows Claire a small article in the paper recounting Debbie's story - Cheerleader Claims She Saw a Boy Who Could Fly - and Claire finally begins to realize the gravity of the error that she has made. Sandra, however, is supportive of West's presence, and Claire allows West to stay but later that afternoon, her father comes home and Claire is forced to admit that her father is the man who abducted West as a child. That night, Noah finds the article, and tells the family to pack their bags, that they're leaving. Claire says they'll be leaving without her.
The next day, when they're scheduled to leave, Claire tries apologizing to West to no avail. She's still insistent upon not leaving Costa Verde, but Noah and Sandra both send her to school with the intention of it being her last day. Bob Bishop, the new head of the Company (Eric Thompson was killed by Noah at the end of Season 1), interrupts Claire's cheerleading practice, posing as a member of the school board hoping to talk to Claire about the incident with Debbie. Unfortunately for him, he slips up and calls her 'Bennet' rather than 'Butler,' and Claire sprints off in the opposite direction. When she gets home, she sees her father's laptop open with a Mendez painting depicting her father's death, and she tells her mother that they need to leave immediately. Bob has followed her, though, and he ties Sandra up and takes Claire with him with the purpose of collecting her blood and using it to help cure a virus.
Meanwhile, Noah has already realized that Mohinder has gone native and is also attempting to acquire Claire for the same purposes. Noah teams up with West and the two of them capture Bob's daughter, Elle, who has been assigned Mohinder's partner. He proposes an exchange with Bob: Elle for Claire. Bob has already taken some of Claire's blood but agrees to the exchange anyway. They meet at the beach and a scuffle ensues: West flies off with Claire, who knows her father is about to die. Elle zaps West out of the sky with electricity - her ability - and Noah moves to shoot Bob but is shot first by Mohinder. Claire flies away with West, believing her father is dead.
Bob arrives the next day while Lyle, Sandra, and Claire are packing their house up to leave. He delivers and urn with Noah's ashes inside, and Sandra points a gun at him and tells him to leave. Later, the family and West go to the beach to scatter the ashes, and Claire notices Elle watching from her parked car. Punching out the window, Claire threatens exposure and plans to go public with her father's files on the numerous people he has bagged and tagged, under the impression that it will make her untouchable. West tries to stop her, but she refuses and gives him his files angrily, ending their relationship in the process. After West leaves, Noah walks through the front door, alive thanks to Claire's blood, and forces her to stop her plan of exposing the Company by informing her of a deal he made with them. He will go back to work for the Company and in return, Claire and the rest of the family will be left alone to lead a normal life.Volume 3
Immediately following Noah's exit from the Bennet household, Sandra and Lyle leave to run errands, leaving Claire at the house alone. On television, she watches Nathan give a speech from Odessa and then watches him get mowed down by an unidentified assassin. She calls Peter - who is actually Peter from the future, and season 3 is where Heroes goes really off the map - but he tells her that she's in California and there's nothing she can do. Regardless, she begins packing a bag to come to Texas, only to be interrupted by Sylar leaning against her bedroom door. A struggle ensues, and Claire escapes momentarily and stabs Sylar in the chest only to get pinned down to a coffee table. After nearly a year of chasing her, Sylar finally gets the opportunity to pull the top of Claire's head off and poke around inside her brain, acquiring her ability and making him systematically indestructible and leaving Claire with the nasty side effect of being unable to feel pain**. She begins testing her ability again by standing in front of an oncoming train but is stopped by Future!Peter, who tells her that he can't help her and can't train her, which is what she wants.
At home, Noah shows her records of people with abilities who have escaped from Level 5 at one of the Company's facilities - Level 5 being where they hold the most dangerous and powerful. He brings in Meredith to look after Claire and the rest of his family, but rather than seeing it as protection, Claire asks her biological mother to train her to use her ability, and Meredith takes her to an empty storage container and burns all the oxygen out of the air, explaining the concept of water boarding. Meredith continues this until Claire admits that she doesn't want to learn how to fight because she wants to help people, but because she wants to hurt Sylar. Later that night under the pretense of going to a cheerleading sleepover, Claire steals a box of Noah's files and drives off with the intention of hunting people down the way her father had.
She experiences some success with this on her first try, finding a man who can create black holes, but her sympathy for him wins out and she vows to help him instead. This is interrupted when Noah arrives with a new partner - Sylar. Believing he's been tricked, the man creates a black hole and escapes, and Claire is almost sucked in but saved last minute by Sylar. She's somewhat less than grateful and not exactly thrilled that he's touching her and during the car ride home, she expresses her distaste that Noah is working with Sylar. When they arrive home, Claire and Sandra realize that Meredith is missing, having left to find Claire and starting at random with one of the individuals in Noah's files. The next day they team up to save her from Eric Doyle, who can control people as if they were puppets. Doyle forces the women to play a Russian roulette type game, and Sandra pulls the trigger and shoots Claire, knocking her free of Doyle's control so that she can find something to hit him over the head with, subduing him.
Sandra and Claire arrive home after debriefing with Noah about Doyle and find the lights flickering. Lyle is inside, injured but alive, and so is Elle Bishop, whose ability has been going haywire. She and Claire fight, but it's Lyle who finally throws a bucket of water on Elle, who apologizes and says that she needs help. Claire and Elle decide to fly to New Jersey together to visit Pinehearst, as Elle has a card that says the organization can help them. On the way, Elle nearly short circuits an entire airplane but Claire is able to channel the electricity into her body and they manage to stop the plane from crashing.
At Pinehearst, they see Peter falling out of a window, and they also notice that Peter isn't healing. Expecting help, Claire turns to Elle but she's already on her way inside, apologetic and thankful. As Claire tends to Peter's wounds, they theorize on how he could have survived the fall, thinking that Sylar may have slowed Peter's descent so that he could maintain the pretense of a villain, working for Peter's father, Arthur - who has been presumed dead since the beginning of Season 1 but who, like everyone else in this show, came back and has been playing the role of villain. Nathan arrives with a woman named Tracy Strauss, and while Peter is reluctant to tell them anything about Pinehearst, Claire does, and the two leave to set affairs straight there.
Claire and Peter are ambushed by two Level 5 escapees, Knox - who grows stronger the more people fear him - and Flint - who is a firebug, Meredith's brother, and effectively Claire's uncle, though she doesn't know it. Claire, believing that they are after Peter, distracts them so that Peter can get away but learns that it's her that Pinehearst wants, her that they are after. She escapes with Peter's help, and later she realizes that the reason Pinehearst is after her is because she is the 'catalyst' and has something special inside of her blood that Arthur Petrelli and Pinehearst want. Noah takes Claire back to California in order to protect her and begins training her to defend herself in the process. However, Arthur sends Elle and Sylar, both now working for him, to collect Claire. Unbeknownst to all of them, the solar eclipse that is occurring outside has temporarily disabled their powers, and when Claire steps in front of a bullet intended for Noah, she doesn't heal the way that she is supposed to. They are able to escape from Elle and Sylar, and Noah takes her home to tend to her wound, which he doesn't think is serious enough to risk a hospital visit for, but they soon discover the injury is much more serious.
Rushed to the hospital, Claire's body is unable to fight off the infection that the bullet has caused because she effectively has no immune system, never having been sick before because of her ability. She dies on the operating room table but is revived and heals when the eclipse ends. Noah has tracked down Sylar and Elle in the meantime, shot Elle and killed Sylar, who also revives after the eclipse. Sandra and Claire, who had rushed out of the hospital so that no one would notice Claire's miraculously not dead body, and later Noah are met by the pair, who have come for Claire. Claire agrees to go with them when they threaten her parents but before anyone can leave, Hiro Nakamura teleports into the Bennet house and teleports Elle and Sylar out before coming back for Claire. He takes her to Manhattan sixteen years prior where they watch Claire, as a baby, being given to Noah.
Their purpose for being in the past at all is to ensure that Claire does not become the catalyst. This is the Bennets' short stay in New York that was mentioned in the very beginning of this section. Claire follows the baby version of herself and introduces herself to a sixteen years younger Sandra as Bonnie, the neighbor's niece. Noah eventually comes home as well and is immediately suspicious of this Bonnie but it's through Bonnie!Claire's urging that he doesn't take Claire to become the catalyst. She meets Hiro on the rooftop again, who tells her that he is now the catalyst, but before they can go back to the present day, Arthur Petrelli appears and steals the catalyst from Hiro, sending Claire back with a message for Angela: he won. Back in the real world, Arthur uses the catalyst to enhance a formula that Mohinder Suresh has been working on, which has the potential to give anyone an ability. Peter confronts Arthur and attempts to kill him, but it's Sylar who finally puts the bullet in Arthur's head.
With Sylar on the loose, Claire, Noah, Angela, and Meredith all arm themselves at the Primatech facility, where Sylar traps them. His intention is to prove that they are all monsters just like him, and Claire stays with Angela in order to protect her. Sylar gives Claire an ultimatum: stay and protect Angela while Noah and Meredith die, or let Angela die and walk out with the others. Claire can't be bothered to stay in one place, and she takes Angela with her in an attempt to help Noah and Meredith, who has been pumped full of adrenaline and can barely control her ability. Sylar manages to kidnap Angela and pins Claire to the wall before giving her a new ultimatum: Noah or Angela. Of course she picks Noah, who is trapped in the Level 5 holding cell with Meredith. Claire is able to free her father from the cell, but she's unable to save Meredith, and in retaliation she sneaks up behind Sylar just as he is about to kill Angela and stabs him in the back of the head with a piece of glass, very similar to how he killed Peter in season 1.
The Primatech facility burns down, and Claire, Noah, and Angela watch, believing, for the moment, both Meredith and Sylar to be dead.Volume 4
Claire is on a college tour with her father and grandmother, having had doors opened for her by the Petrelli family's position in politics and the media. She's gotten her GED rather than completing high school the more traditional way, and Angela is insisting on Claire having a normal life. Claire's finding it difficult with the growing feeling that Sylar is still alive and out there, especially as Noah has been taking strange trips again. Later, Claire overhears a conversation between Nathan and Angela in which the two talk about taking Matt Parkman and Peter down, and eventually Claire is taken down in the same way that others with abilities are being taken down, all under Nathan's orders. He's rounding up people with abilities and drugging them, shipping them off somewhere they can't be a threat. Claire has been given a free pass, as Nathan is trying (and failing) to make up for all the mistakes he has made in her life, and so Nathan spares her from being shipped off with the rest and tells her to go home, but Claire sneaks onto the plane that is transporting everyone - Peter, Mohinder, Hiro, Tracy, etc. - and ends up helping to bring it down.
The result is relative chaos. Claire acts as a meat shield and takes a chest full of bullets in trying to protect the others. She's sent back home with the threat of keeping a low profile, or else. She starts receiving text messages from someone called Rebel, who gives her information on people in the Costa Verde area with abilities who are in danger. The first person that she helps is a boy named Alex. Claire approaches him at work and finds that Noah is the one who has been sent to collect him. They manage to escape and Claire hides Alex in her closet, listening to her parents scream at each other downstairs. Noah comes up after a while and tells Claire that Sandra has asked him not to stay at the house for a while. Alex is eventually discovered by Sandra, who helps make him a fake ID and then later assists in his escape. Claire and Alex share a kiss underwater - Alex has the ability to breathe underwater - and Claire puts him on a train for his own safety.
Back at the Bennet house, Claire and Sandra are preparing to watch a movie when Eric Doyle shows up in their kitchen, showing Claire his text message from Rebel, who claims that Claire can help him. Reluctant, Claire does help Doyle and gives him a new identity, but she later receives a message saying that her free pass is up and agents are coming for her, as Nathan exposed his ability. Having immediately taken off for California, he arrives at her window just in time and saves her from his own agents, and the two take off for Pátzcuaro, Mexico. In order to pay for their hotel, Claire pawns a necklace that Noah had given her, and Nathan gets unbelievably drunk. Claire plays a drinking game with some college kids in order to win more money. Since she can't get drunk, she wins easily. Drunk, Nathan says that he's going to fix the mess he's made, but in the morning he goes back on his word and Claire, upset, leaves the hotel room. Nathan finds her later and presents her with the necklace that she pawned, having pawned his own watch to get it back. The two leave Mexico arm-in-arm, headed back to the States to see that Nathan's mistakes get put right.
On the way back, they are called by Angela to meet at a place called Coyote Sands. Peter, Mohinder, and Noah are also there, and they begin to dig up graves at Angela's instruction, learning what happened in the process. While there, they discover that Angela had a sister and they both were at Coyote Sands when a mass execution of people with abilities took place. After a sandstorm - created by Angela's sister, Alice - has passed, they leave the area, and stop in a diner for food, though no one says a word. At the table, Angela expresses that she wants to start another Company, and Nathan is adamant about talking to the president and trying to fix things. Claire notices on TV, though, that Nathan is giving a press conference. Impossible, they realize that it's Sylar, and he's acquired the ability of shape shifting. Peter and Nathan fly off to stop Sylar while Angela, Claire, and Noah are left to travel by car.
After passing a suspicious looking construction zone, Angela wakes from a dream and says that they have to get to Nathan. Noah makes them get out of the car and walk to DC. Angela says that in her dream Matt Parkman would save Nathan, so she takes off to find Matt while Claire moves to find Nathan, who has already confronted Sylar and been knocked unconscious. Inherently suspicious of Sylar posing as Nathan, she nonetheless believes the facade and goes with Sylar!Nathan to the Stanton, where Claire believes Sylar has headed. Locked in the hotel room, Sylar shape shifts into Claire in order to talk to Noah on the phone, turning back into himself at the last minute so that Noah knows exactly who Claire is with. He keeps her trapped in the hotel with telekinesis, discussing their twin immortality. Claire vows that even if it takes her the rest of her life, she'll keep trying to kill him. It's not long until Nathan and Peter show up. Sylar throws Claire into the hallway and she watches through a crack in the door as electricity flashes and the room is torn up. The hold on the door lets up and Claire rushes inside the room, only finding Peter, who has been injured. They leave the room, meaning to find Nathan and Sylar, before Sylar throws Nathan back in through the window and slits his throat, killing him.
In the lobby, they're met by agents who threaten to shoot the two of them and Noah, who has recently arrived, and Claire stands in front of them, saying that they can shoot them or listen to her. They stand down, and Peter is able to shape shift into the President, having stolen that ability from Sylar, and tranquilize Sylar, who is still posing as Nathan. Noah tells Claire and Peter to go find Nathan and takes Sylar's body back to the hotel room. Nathan is there, obviously, but dead, and Angela, Matt, and Noah force Nathan's consciousness into Sylar's body, making him believe that he is Nathan, effectively, or so they think, putting Sylar to rest for good. In order to keep up the appearance of having killed Sylar, Noah, Angela, and Matt obtain the body of the man Sylar originally stole the shape shifting ability from. James Martin had morphed into Sylar right before he died, and he makes an excellent stand in on a funeral pyre, burning as many of the people Sylar had attacked watch him go up in flames.Volume 5
Trying to rebuild her life as much as she can, Claire enters college in Arlington, Virgina, no more assumed names. She cuts her hair short and generally has a positive going into the experience but given her history, there's always apprehension. She meets her new roommate, Annie, who has her whole life mapped out and is somewhat intimidatingly forceful in suggesting that she help Claire map out her own life. Reluctantly, Claire attends a placement exam with Annie for a math class and experiences a sort of hallucination where she imagines she's being attacked by DHS agents, targeted and tased. She decides the class isn't for her and leaves, bumping into Gretchen Berg, who actually recognizes her from the press surrounding Jackie's murder back at Union Wells High School. Noah is waiting for Claire when she gets back to her room, wishing her luck on her first day, and later Claire attends a mixer with Annie and Gretchen.
Annie leaves early, and when Claire returns to her room, she finds it empty and the window open. Looking out, she discovers Annie's dead body on the ground below. The police come to question her, claiming it was a suicide and that they found a note, but Claire is positive there was no note when she first entered the room and suspects something is off. She stays with Sandra that night and is questioned by Gretchen the next day, who has taken an odd interest both in Annie's suicide and in Claire herself. Gretchen wants to recreate Annie's jump to see if she actually did jump or if she was pushed. Disturbed, Claire declines but tries it out later herself, jumping from the window and looking up as she heals to find Gretchen watching her from her own window.
Claire tries to avoid the other girl, going so far as to begin using the boys' bathroom to shower and brush her teeth. She's unable to escape her one afternoon, however, when Noah stops by to take her to lunch. Gretchen more or less invites herself and drops subtle - or not-so-subtle - hints throughout the meal about Claire's ability, enough that Noah's suspicions are aroused and he threatens to call the Haitian and have Gretchen's memory wiped. As much as Claire has tried to avoid Gretchen, though, she has to admit that the other girl is the only friend Claire has made, and she tells Noah that she wants to deal with the situation herself. Later that night, Claire allows Gretchen to ask her anything and shows her what her ability can do by letting Gretchen slice open her hand. She also asks Gretchen to be her roommate, and the other girl accepts.
In good spirits, Claire visits her father - and Peter, who's there on his own business with Noah - and tries to coach him on getting a new job. For the first time, she enjoys a relatively normal life, glad to have found someone like Gretchen to confide in. She's invited to rush a sorority and accepts, bringing Gretchen along with her to a meet and greet speed dating event at the sorority house. All Gretchen can talk about, however, is Claire, which Claire finds alarming given her past and her need to keep secrets. Back in their dorm room, a book falls from a shelf and Gretchen's computer lights up, revealing web browsers with information about Claire and in relation to her ability and Annie's death.
The two attend a sorority mixer that night, and while Claire is talking to another pledge, a banner pole falls between them, Claire pushing the other girl out of the way just in time. When she looks up, Gretchen is leaning over the balcony from where the pole fell, and Claire leaves the party without saying a word. Back in the dorm room, Claire drills Gretchen about the computer and the mixer, and Gretchen admits that she's not stalking her but instead actually has a crush on her before kissing her. Before the two can talk any further, the sorority sisters enter the room and invite both Claire and Gretchen to join the sorority.
After visiting her father, and Peter, again, and learning that Hiro is sick with a tumor, Claire and Gretchen discuss what happened between them several days before. Claire admits that she didn't think the kiss was bad but she doesn't want to ruin their friendship or the normalcy that she has going on in her life. Before they can talk further, people in ski masks break into the room and attempt to kidnap the both of them. Claire takes out one of them, and Rebecca, the leader of the sorority house, reveals that they're in no real danger, they're just being kidnapped as a hazing ritual. Gretchen and Claire are transported in the back of a car where they again vaguely discuss what happened between them and are dropped off with two other pledges at a slaughterhouse, which has been turned into a sort of maze for them to find their way out of with questions about the sorority's history sprinkled throughout. The two teams split up, and the situation quickly turns serious as Gretchen is almost impaled by a hook that comes swinging out of nowhere.
In reality, it's Rebecca - with the ability to become invisible - who has been trying to kill people that Claire ends up getting close to. She pushed Annie out of the window and is trying to take out Gretchen next so that Claire will find herself alone. She's acting on orders from a man named Samuel, who runs a carnival populated with special people, like Claire, and is gathering as many as he can. The more genetically evolved people he has near him, the stronger he is, and he is planning something quite large in order to establish his presence in the world. Claire discovers that it's Rebecca doing this when Claire is impaled on an exposed piece of metal sticking out from the wall. The two other sorority girls see her heal and Rebecca turn invisible, but she's able to convince them that Rebecca drugged their water.
Gretchen, understandably, is freaked out. She's not used to the sort of life that Claire has been living, and while Claire is gung ho about tracking Rebecca down and figuring this all out, Gretchen is terrified at the prospect that someone is trying to kill her. Claire goes to the sorority house anyway and runs into Noah and the Haitian, who have been doing some damage control. Claire agrees to leave with the Haitian and return to her dorm while Noah investigates Rebecca, and when Claire returns she finds Gretchen packing, as she's decided to move to another part of campus, leaving Claire alone. The Haitian escorts Gretchen out, and after they leave, Samuel Sullivan arrives with a proposition for Claire. He tells her about his carnival of special people and Claire lets him talk until Noah arrives, handcuffs him, and takes him to his car. Becky also shows up and attacks them, though Samuel stops her and Claire convinces Noah not to shoot either of them.
Before Thanksgiving, she meets Tracy Strauss, who has been coming to Noah for help and working with him, when she's having issues controlling her freezing ability. The two talk about college and Samuel's carnival and Gretchen before Noah returns. The next time that Claire sees her friend is at Thanksgiving, although she is not expecting to see the other girl at all. Attending dinner at her father's apartment, it is an initially awkward experience as Sandra has come with her new boyfriend, Doug, and Noah has also brought a date, Kate, who he used to work with at the Company. During conversation over dinner, Claire gets frustrated and stabs herself, much to Doug's dismay, and he faints almost immediately. While he's recovering, Noah shares all the information that he has on Samuel with Claire, and once Gretchen arrives, for dessert, the two decide to use the rest of their Thanksgiving vacation to check out the carnival.
They arrive at Samuel's carnival and are greeted by Samuel himself and stick around to look at all the attractions - and people with abilities - for the duration of one box of popcorn. Once they're finished, Gretchen wants to leave, but Claire says that she is going to stay, manipulated by Samuel's persuasive nature and her desire to be around people who are like her. She stays for the rest of the weekend, discussing with Samuel and Lydia, a woman covered in tattoos who can see things about people through the ink on her skin, the carnival and their lives there. She plans to leave at the end of the weekend, but Samuel informs one of his cronies, Eli, to make sure that she doesn't, though after the day he relents. She doesn't leave until she receives a phone call from both Peter and her father, urging her to call them back.
Nathan's funeral is a sham, of course, but most people involved don't know that. Sylar has emerged from Nathan's consciousness and taken control of his own mind again, but most people are there only to mourn Nathan's death. He gets a proper burial and a twenty-one gun salute, and Claire gains a new reason to be angry and distrustful of her father, after learning about his hand in disguising Sylar as Nathan. Peter takes the news badly, and although Claire tries to be there for him as much as she can, he still takes off after listening to a police scanner, hoping to defuse a hostile situation. Claire follows, and Peter is shot while attempting to protect people from a gunman. While on the stretcher, waiting to be taken to the hospital, Peter absorbs Claire's ability, and Claire tells him that he has to stop the path that he's on, that he's not honoring Nathan's memory and that his brother would be furious with him. They return to Angela's apartment, sitting on the roof together, and Peter asks Claire to call West, who she's still friends with. He arrives and Peter absorbs his ability, flight, in order to be closer to Nathan even in death.
Back in her dorm room, Claire finds a note from Gretchen saying that she's in the library, studying late, and Claire leans back on her bed. Outside, Sylar is watching her from the window, having been sent there by Lydia, who has put the idea that Claire can help Sylar into his head. The next morning, Gretchen tries to get Claire to open up to her, but Claire is dismissive and leaves for a study session, only to find that there is no study session and it's Sylar who's come to talk to her. He ends up kissing her, trying to get answers out of her the way that Lydia did with him, and Claire stabs him in the eye with a pencil, rushing out of the room under the impression that he's done something to Gretchen. She finds Gretchen tied up in her dorm room and they hide in a closet, where Claire apologizes to Gretchen for pushing her away, saying that she's afraid of getting hurt and being alone. After admitting that she is like Sylar, Gretchen reveals that she is not actually Gretchen but Sylar and in the weirdest turn of events ever, he hasn't hurt Gretchen and doesn't hurt Claire. Claire returns to Gretchen in the cafeteria and takes her hand, not caring about anything that anyone might have to say about it.
The next day, Gretchen and Claire drive to see Noah, and Gretchen urges Claire to tell him about Sylar, but Claire is hesitant. Finally she goes up alone to find Lauren already in her father's apartment. Lauren fills Claire in on Samuel's MO, and Claire, being Claire, feels that it's something she can handle and help deal with. Gretchen disagrees, but Claire returns to the carnival anyway with the intention of stopping Samuel. While she's there, she manages to convince Samuel to come with her peacefully, putting an end to his plans of destroying an entire town, but someone - who everyone at the carnival believes to be Noah - opens fire on the carnies, killing Lydia in the process. In reality, it's Samuel's right hand man, Eli, and Noah is only being framed. Claire doesn't initially believe her father but ends up defending him to Samuel, who brings them both to the House of Mirrors, where Claire is able to see much of Noah's past with the help of one of the carnies' abilities. Although she doesn't like everything that she sees, she's still, as always, on her father's side. Samuel reveals to her his plan of exposing people with abilities, but Claire wants no part of it, and goes to see to Noah in one of the carnival's trailers. While she and Noah are inside, Samuel buries the trailer deep down in the ground.
Rapidly running out of oxygen, Claire is forced to face the prospect that she might have to watch her father die while her lungs will eventually regenerate and keep her alive. She begins to dig furiously at the exposed earth in an attempt to save Noah, until the dirt begins to turn to mud and then to water, with Tracy Strauss manifesting and pulling them safely out of the ground with the help of her ability. Topside, the rest of the carnies are able to be convinced that Samuel's plan is to kill thousands of people and they consequently leave Samuel's carnival. He and Peter end up fighting until Samuel is subdued, with Hiro and Ando teleporting the carnival-goers out of Central Park and to safety.
After everything has calmed down, reporters begin to arrive, speaking to Claire and her father about the events within the carnival. Claire initially has no comment, but after a moment, she takes off for the stopped Ferris Wheel, climbing to the top while her friends and family watch from the ground. All cameras turn toward her, and Claire leaps off the top of the Ferris Wheel. In a throwback to her Season 1 experiments, Claire's injuries heal on camera, a display for the whole world to see, and she says, "My name is Claire Bennet, and that was attempt number... I guess I've kind of lost count."
* Claire's technical age is something of a debated topic, enough that the series creators can't even agree on a date. In Season 4 her birthday is revealed to be August 8th, and I've always played her as having been born in 1990, making her 16 throughout season 1 and 2 - when she would have been a junior in high school, coinciding with her statement in season 2 about 'wading into the shark infested waters of 11th grade' - and 16 throughout the first half of season 3. In the second half of season 3, I assume she had a birthday in August, making her 17 at the start of Volume 4, giving her the summer to obtain her GED. Which would mean that season 4 (volume 5) would have picked up practically a year after Volume 4 started, in the fall, making Claire 18 and ready to start college.
** This will be touched on in the ability section below, but Claire's inability to feel pain is also debatable, with some people thinking that it's a psychosomatic response to Sylar's attack on her, while others, such as myself, think that it's an actual disability resulting from Sylar messing with something in her brain.
Personality:
Claire Bennet was a nice girl.
That's what people will say about the sixteen-year-old who had a really bad year back at Union Wells High School. She was quick to laugh and easy to get along with, nice as much as popular sixteen-year-old girls can be. Carefree. While it isn't a lie to say that Claire, now eighteen, has retained some of that vibrant and positive energy, saying that she is remotely the same person is a huge stretch. Growing up surrounded by friends and family who loved her very much, Claire enjoyed a normal childhood that made her that much more fiercely protective of that normalcy when it as challenged and threatened. Of course, Claire experienced her own period in her adolescence where being a kind and caring person was less important than garnering the attention of other popular girls and quarterbacks in her high school, and as a result, she became selfish and manipulative, developed an ability to use others and exploit their feelings about her in order to get what she wanted out of them. These developments, however, were not without their consequences, and at the end of that road Claire found that it inspired much more within her to treat people with compassion.
That desire to be an actively decent and generally nice person hasn't come to encompass the entirety of her personality, though, as Claire is a girl who has been through hell and is still going through hell at every stage of her life. Naturally suspicious and paranoid, Claire will be the first to tell you that she has a very difficult time feeling safe around anyone, that it is insanely difficult for her to open up to anyone and trust them as a consequence. She has an obsessive and sometimes destructive desire to see that her secrets and insecurities surrounding those secrets aren't compromised. Her formative years have been shrouded in secrecy, both self-imposed and imposed by others who have reassured her time and time again that her regenerative abilities are little more than a portal for trouble to constantly come knocking at her door. As a result, she does what she has to in order to protect herself and the people that she cares about and has grown increasingly more assertive, poised on a hair trigger, in that protection when compared to the bright ray of sunshine that could be found strutting her stuff up and down a football field, dissolving into tears at the first sign of trouble. Claire might still be an emotional and reactive girl at her core, but over the years she has gotten much better at hiding and suppressing, channeling it into a force of motion, action, and inertia rather than a roadblock to get herded behind. Truth be told, she's much better as a force in motion and much happier than she is when kept stagnant.
Living in a world where real, tangible danger is lurking around every corner has instilled in her not only a burning desire to protect herself and her secrets but to also fight and stand up for those who can't do it themselves. Although she might have inherited her father's morally gray attitude more than she would like to admit, Claire is still a huge proponent of justice, of doing the right thing, of trying to achieve the best results while actively pursuing a way to avoid the most collateral. Her ability, in her mind, has turned her into a shield, and she has a bad habit of putting herself between the oncoming train and everyone else who isn't going to survive the collision. She'll stress the importance of safety to others who aren't capable of spitting up bullets and stitching their skin back together but display a complete lack of regard for the rules when she's the one who is about to get shot. She's capable of being outspoken and vocal about her beliefs, whether in an individual person or with an idea as a whole, and stands stubbornly by her convictions. That hardly deters from her ability to be practical, and it's not uncommon to find her maturity as a result of the incredible circumstances of her life being impressed upon those who are much older than her in the form of advice or some form of lecturing.
For all of her stubbornness, for all of her peacocking, at the end of the day, Claire still is that bright girl trying to find acceptance within herself in a world that is rapidly turning to shit. She's secretive but constantly searches for ways in which she can share her secrets with others. She understands the importance of hiding her ability in a quest to be normal but is able to realize that she isn't normal and she's never going to be. It's gotten to the point that she can hardly identify with anyone who might have a goal dissimilar to hers when it comes to standing and facing the inherent danger in a situation. She isn't afraid to jump headfirst into the storm, and she doesn't immediately empathize with people who are. It's only been a couple of years since her ability has manifested, but Claire has been so submerged into the dangerous world that has surfaced as a result of that ability, has been put right in the middle of world destruction, dealt with a serial killer stalking her across the country and ultimately catching her, that there is no normal for her anymore. Claire is constantly trying to start her life again, but there is a certain realization for her in that doing that in defiance and denial of everything that she is and has come to be is only ever going to get her right back at the beginning again. Despite her problems and the challenges that she faces, the insecurities and fears that she has, Claire has come to finally accept that the conditions of her life are a part of her and have melded her into the person that she is, and as a result her craving for a normal life has been replaced by the yearning for an honest one.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
Claire has the ability of rapid cellular regeneration, which means that her cells reproduce at a rapid rate - shocking definition - allowing her to heal from virtually any injury her body receives. Whether she is burned, electrocuted, stabbed, shot, or frozen, her body's ability to recover typically remains uncompromised. There is a soft spot just at the base of her skull which, when punctured, forces her into a deathlike state for as long as the object doing the puncturing remains lodged in place, but as soon as it is removed, she revives, even when she's been split open for examination on an autopsy table. The only surefire way of killing her is through decapitation, and while that's been suggested through premonition, it's never something that has actually been explored in the real world.
In Claire's case, this raises the question of immortality, as another evolved human with the same ability - Adam Monroe - lived to be hundreds of years old while still retaining the same appearance, never aging or dying. Both Claire and Sylar both imply that theirs is a feud that might go on forever, given that the two of them also share the ability, so it's logical to assume that not only will Claire's ability allow her to live for ever - a boon or a burden, given your perspective - but eventually she will stop aging as well.
Claire also cannot feel pain, which isn't something that came with her ability at birth but rather was one of the consequences of Sylar poking around in her brain when he finally caught her and managed to acquire her ability. There's no direct evidence that indicates her CIPA is psychosomatic or a real disability, but I do believe that it is something tangible and not just something that she constructed in order to further protect herself from that sort of pain or experience again. In Season 4, when Claire's ability is turned off because of Peter's proximity - he was in possession of an ability that basically mutes the abilities of others when he's around them - she does experience pain and actually enjoys it. It's something that she misses having, as her own doubts and insecurities regarding her ability have been something that has plagued her since she discovered that she could ram a steel rod through her neck and survive. In this way, she is vulnerable in a sense; because she is so secretive when it comes to her nature, it can be difficult to determine when and where she's injured, leaving her exposed to people accidentally witnessing a rib or collarbone sticking out where it shouldn't.
Although Claire has spent years with a solid foundation in exercise and is athletic, she is in no way on the same level as even someone with the most basic training. She can run fast and has good endurance, but she's not very strong and basically relies completely on her ability as both an offensive and defensive tool. Her own body has become so reliant on her regeneration that it hasn't even managed to build its own immune system, leaving her extremely vulnerable if she's ever depowered - whether through an in-game event, another character, or, in her own world, around someone like the Haitian. She describes herself as defensive player of the year, and that's true so long as she's acting like a meat shield, but when it comes to holding her own in a fight or holding someone off, she's useless.
As far as power limitations go, in canon, Claire's blood is more or less Jesus blood: it can bring people back from the dead, heal injuries, etc. She could conceivably keep someone alive and immortal with regular injections of her blood, if she wanted. In the game, however, her blood should only work on people from her own canon and even then only when healing injuries, never for bringing people back from the dead. Should her blood be introduced to someone from another canon, the types wouldn't match, regardless of Claire's blood type or the recipient's blood type, and a number of problems could occur. Ultimately, I think that the transfusion could be fatal, but that would of course be up to player and mod discretion. At the least, it would cause aggulation and leave the individual receiving Claire's blood in a potentially worse state than they were when they started out.
Inventory:
( 1 ) Black coat, double-breasted, black buttons
( 1 ) Pink, long-sleeved shirt
( 1 ) Pair of dark blue jeans
( 1 ) Pair of black, cloth boots with fringe
( 1 ) Pair of black underwear
( 1 ) Nude bra
( 1 ) Heart-shaped necklace
( 1 ) Pair of diamond stud earrings
( 1 ) Thin, white gold ring
( 1 ) Elastic hair band
Appearance:
Petite in every sense of the word, Claire barely breaks 5'1" and weighs about 109lbs. Despite being so petite, she's relatively well-toned without being stocky, with a body type that could be described as athletic. Her hair - blonde - is typically worn long but has been cut above her shoulders and is slowly growing out again, and her eyes are green. The most remarkable thing about her appearance is her distinct lack of scars or blemishes of any sort. She is PB'd by Hayden Panettiere:
SAMPLES
Log Sample:
The weightlessness of space isn't exactly what she was anticipating before turning her comm device off - to the best of her ability - and stepping into an unused storeroom. It's nothing like drifting through water, like living inside of a snow globe, the way that she imagined it might be. Sometimes falling from distances that seem impossibly high feels like drifting through zero gravity, even though, scientifically, it's not an accurate comparison to make. Claire supposes that anyone who wasn't her might feel how crushing it is to fall faster and faster toward the ground, feel the wind and the force of the inevitable crushing the life out of them from every direction, but Claire has always felt like she was flying.
Until she hits the ground and sprays blood everywhere, has to spend twenty minutes walking it off if only to make sure that her bones have all settled back into the proper joints and sockets. That's the disadvantage to being unable to feel pain - one of them, at least; her often hidden, never mentioned laundry list of personal issues regarding her handicap is something she considers better left not talked about - you never know when something is sticking out obnoxiously, a rib or vertebrae acting like a spotlight on your abnormality.
She's getting better at considering it more normal than abnormal, but it still takes time. Regardless of all that they have fought for over the years - it seems so long, a few thousand compacted into so little, leaving her feeling too old and too young for all of it - it's still taken time for Claire to think of herself as anything other than an anomaly, something to be hidden away and not talked about, hardly conversation material at the dinner table. Something to be kept secret, protected. It's too late for that now, and although she's not sure if she will ever know the consequences of her actions, of standing on top of that raised platform with the Ferris Wheel ground to a halt below her, the entirety of the world staring up at her through focused camera lenses, her capacity for anticipating it as the right move to make has not left her, even with the change in scenery.
The Tranquility hums all around her, living up to its namesake, but there's a strange and cruel coolness in this room that she's found: hidden away, secret. Claire floats in nothingness, and if she closes her eyes, she can pretend that this is what immortality feels like, eventually. Just floating, breathing, quiet.
It's fortunate that she's learned to operate the comm device as thoroughly as she has, though she's learned from experience that the potential for pocket dialing the entire Network isn't exactly like winning the lottery. Claire removes the switchblade she found earlier from the security of her boot, working it out of the leather and flicking it open so that it gleams dully in the overhead light. The room is small, but large enough for her to stretch an arm out, rolling back her sleeve to reveal the number on her arm, which has always felt like a brand, something Nathan probably would have thought up had he been given the time to ruin their lives further.
It's without thought that she brings the blade back through the skin, slicing deep, past the epidermis. Eventually she would like to test the effect zero gravity has on her body altogether, remembering paragraphs that she read in her astronomy class about what so much time spent in weightlessness does to the human body, but for now this satiates the need for experimentation that shows up from time to time. As usual, it raises more questions than it does answers - what effect would her blood have on people from other worlds? What can her ability do in space? Can she float in the vacuum endlessly? - but for now the gleaming of her blood in the florescent lighting is curious enough.
And then she realizes.
How the hell is she going to clean this up?
Comms Sample:
( No sound or video initially, the feed remains dark until the crackle of static breaks through, eventually giving way to grainy darkness that turns bright as the world comes into focus. There's a seemingly mad scramble, which turns out only to be misjudged distance sending the comm device skittering away from a pair of feet.
It's quickly picked up, showing a face complete with furrowed brow. The girl's lips move but there's still no sound until a button is pressed and then - )
- ike some kind of brand? That smells like government policy to me, all things considered.
( If Nathan were still - well, it would be less than surprising to her if this whole situation was a brainchild of his, kicked into gear thanks to a will or some kind of conspiracy. Claire exhales, nearly a sigh but trying too hard not to be. )
Look, if this is some kind of kidnapping attempt, you picked the wrong person. You either let me go and walk out of this relatively okay or wait around until my dad figures out what's happened and gets involved.
( Even to her, that sounds lame. It's not like she needs him - or wants him - to fight her battles anymore, but still. )
Seriously, I'm not making this up. I'm not afraid of you, and he's definitely not going to be. ( There's a pause, not long enough to make one think she's forgotten the device was on, but long enough for her to glance around, gears turning. She's talking before she even looks back at the camera. ) Is this really outer space?