Heroes Fan Fiction ❯ Playing Minerva ❯ Prologue: Birth of Athena ( Chapter 1 )

Spoilers: 01x11, "Fallout", AU after that, does not take “Distractions” in account
Warnings: time-travel, memory jumps, implied underage themes

 

Playing Minerva

Prologue: The Birth of Athena

“I won't take your memories, not like he said.”

Seventeen year-old Claire Bennett stood in a bus terminal, playing with the frays on her light blue sweater, barely new as she tugged anxiously at the loose strings. She frowned, realized what she was doing, and then rolled the ends of her sleeves over her hands to prevent any more damage.

“Can you keep a secret?”

Even if she couldn't, she would have nodded anyway. This man, the Haitian, was sent by her father to take her memories away, to inflict the same treachery that had befell Zach and her family. If she wouldn't have nodded, he would've taken away everything she knew about herself, everything she had learned she could do. Sure, it had taken a while for her to get used to her powers, and often times she had considered herself a freak, but ever since Homecoming night, she had come to accept them - she had to, and it wasn't like they would just go away anyway. So why was her own father trying to hide them from her? Why was he trying to hide her from the world?

She snorted to herself. She hated the fact that all the trust that she had in her father slipped away so easily when he had tried to take her memories. He had tried to take away her life and even her friends.

Her heart still hurt from Zach's face - the friendship that was so easily wiped away between them. He looked at her like she was a gross bug; even after all they had been through together.

Who knew what else her father had done to all who knew her. Who knew?

Peter...

Her eyes lit up, and she took a deep breath. Suddenly, realizations came crashing down on her like scalding water.

Just how far did her father's power reach? Would he try to take away Peter's memories too? Peter was the man who saved her, the first person she connected with about her powers. She had finally found someone that was just like her - someone with a gift, a freak.

He made her feel like she wasn't truly alone anymore.

But Peter wasn't a freak, and he didn't act like he considered himself one either. He acted like ... “ ... a hero,” Claire whispered aloud, and she frantically looked around to see if someone had heard her. Anxiously, she peered to her left to see if her bus was coming yet.

As a tall, dark-haired man ran past her swiftly, her thoughts came back to Peter. He was the reason she was leaving; without him, she felt she had nowhere else to go.

`I can't go back home now, not with what I know.'

---

“You ... you can take away my memories?” Claire asked hesitantly as the Haitian man let her go.

He nodded at her with a defiant look on his face. He sat opposite her in her bedroom, and he stared eerily at her as he read her emotions and expressions.

“Then ... then you're like me? You're like that Peter guy too. We all have these ... gifts?”

The Haitian nodded again, and Claire knew he was a man of few words. It must be even harder for him to even reveal “the secrets” to her.

“And there are others, not specifically like you or me, but others with different powers.” He paused, and he watched as Claire got this wondrous look on her face.

It was incredible! There were other people in the world like her, which had dealt with the same problems of secrecy and abnormality as she had. She felt a sense of relief, but with the large Haitian man still sitting in her room, the atmosphere was still filled with unease.

“And you ... you work for my father? He came here to ... do to me what he did to Zach and my brother, right?” Claire eyed him suspiciously. The evidence was clear; something did happen to Zach and Lyle, where they had no recollection of her powers at all.

This man could do that?

“You can… you can erase thoughts?” Claire started to breathe heavily, and she tried to calm herself from panicking. This man, who worked for her father, was definitely dangerous. She slightly shied away from him as he burned a hole into her from across the room. He didn't smile or look at her with mal intent. He just kept watching her with those speculative, dark eyes.

“What… what else can you do?” Claire was almost too afraid to ask.

“I'll tell you everything if you just calm down, Claire. I'll tell you everything you need to know about your father and his organization. Just trust me.”

Her mind felt like it was spinning, and after he opened his mouth to talk, she found fortitude somewhere, and soaked everything in. She knew this was nothing like learning new cheerleading moves or the quadratic equation for an exam; this was serious.

---

Claire Bennet gazed out the bus window, keeping eye contact outside and not around the people in the bus. She had already inspected them, and none of them seemed suspicious. She was lucky that on this bus ride, only five people including herself was riding: a older couple, a young teenage goth-looking boy, and large single woman that was already on the bus, snoring away as she got on.

Relieved that she had not been followed, her mind began to wander again, and she thought back to everything the Haitian man had told her.

And somehow, her thoughts always came back to Peter.

She got a quizzical look on her face, and she idly wondered would it would have been life if she had lost her memories of Peter. He had such a huge impact on her life already, even if he'd only ran through briefly, saving her life and giving her some hope that she wasn't the only bizarre person in the world.

He made her feel like she wasn't alone anymore.

She inhaled a breath, which turned into a sniffle, and she realized that she had begun to cry. She knew that without knowing Peter, she would have never been saved - she could have been a casualty, like another diner waitress found murdered in the fridge.

She could have felt even more alone- and since her father had all these connections to have people's memories erased, she would have lost Zach anyway, and even Jackie's death wouldn't have meant the same to her - it wouldn't have felt as terrifying or real.

“Memories aren't linear, Claire. They don't follow time like we do. They come and go, they surface and resurface, and seem as real or as faded as we want them to be.

“Memories shape our future. They are pieces in a greater construction, and take one of those pieces away, no matter how small or how large of an impact, the construction of our lives has to reshape - either for the good or the bad. But in the end, we all lose something. Losing memories that make you is like losing a hand or an eye …” The Haitian had paused, and Claire finally saw true, compassionate emotion graze his face. “I hate to see their faces when they've lost the memories I've taken. I've taken important parts of them, and even though they breathe on healthy, they never are really whole.

“They never are.”

Claire wiped away her tears and she remembered. She would remember Peter and the friendships with Zach, and even Jackie's gruesome murder. She would remember the time when she thought her father was good, and when she found out he was not who he seemed to be.

She would remember even if the others forgot. She would play the fool in front of her father to keep the secret locked away, to keep her treasures she called memories.

And she would do something about it. She would not throw away the gift the Haitian had given her. His act of heroism, to let her keep her memories, would not be done in vain.

---

Claire was filled with anger after the Haitian had told her everything about her father's organization. Her nerves ached; her heart pounded in her chest, and her head hurt from feeling so many emotions at once.

For any other seventeen year-old girls, processing that much information might be hard at first, but Claire had been ready. With everything she had gone through in the past 48 hours, she knew her life wasn't going to be the same again.

And on the day that the Haitian had spared her memories and told her everything, Claire Bennet grew up.

But she knew that she couldn't go back now; she could barely face her father. Something inside her flared, and she felt renewed by her decision. She had to get out of Texas soon; she was too involved in many things to ignore this, and she wouldn't cower behind her father's lies.

There was only one person who could help her now. There was one person who could guide and teach her, help her find the answers. She would be a hero now.

She stood up as the Haitian still sat. She looked down at him with defiance and clenched her fists. “You know about my father's files, right?” The Haitian nodded. “Then you can tell me where that man Peter lives. Tell me all you know about him.”

The Haitian didn't make a move, and he tried to read her intentions with his eyes. “Claire, you need to stay here… convince your father I took your memories as we planned.”

Claire shook her head and waved a hand. “Don't worry about that. I'll take care of that tonight. Just give me the address.” He had done so much for her already, so she felt a little guilty asking him for more. The Haitian was hesitant, and she looked at him with desperation in her eyes. “Please.”

He nodded. “You'll have it tonight in an encrypted email. Turn off your spam filters just for the night, and when you get it, delete it right away and mark it as spam. Do you understand? You must not let your father know you got this.”

Claire nodded vigorously, “Yes, I understand clearly.” The Haitian gave her one more skeptical glance and then began to stand.

“I don't know what you plan to do, but you must not let him know how much you know. You're young, and you may not realize this yet, but your father is a dangerous man.”

Claire gave him a piercing look. “Yes, and you're his faithful servant; I know.”

The Haitian gave her a wry smile, the first smile she'd seen from him, and his eyes lit up with a secret scheme. “You're right, but I won't be for long.”

And Claire had suspected that he was taking a huge risk to let her keep her memories, and that sparing her had been his first act of betrayal.

“What do you plan to do with that address, Claire? You at least owe me that.”

Claire bit her lip and then looked straight up into his eyes and said, “I'm going to find Peter and learn more about the others. I'm going to help him. He saved me to save the world, and I'm going to find out with that means.”

The Haitian nodded, and as Claire got lost in her own thoughts and plans, the man who had spared her memories was gone.

---

Claire played the perfect princess that night at dinner with her family. She could feel her father's eyes watching her, waiting for her to slip up or do something suspicious, but it only seemed to make her stronger - her anger fueling her zeal to act the perfect part.

Her mother rambled on about Mr. Muggles, and Claire took to kicking Lyle under the table to cause trouble and divert attention that she knew anything about the incident just days ago. When her cell phone rang, per her timing, she laughed and seemed excited as if she was talking to one of her girlfriends. Her mother told her to take her conversation to her bedroom away from the table, and she candy-coated her behavior more by ripping on Zach to her “girlfriend”.

“Yeah, I saw Zach today. You were right; that prank totally worked on him. He's so clueless.” She laughed and her father watched her walk away up the stairs to her room. “What? He's telling everyone I'm on meth? No way. It was just a joke. Yep, just as we had planned.”

She shut her bedroom door and kept talking about frivolous school stuff and possible new types of cheers. Her father didn't know she wasn't talking on the phone.

If he could act, so could she.

It took everything in her power not to drop the act and confront him, but that would spoil everything the Haitian had sacrificed. It would all spoil her plans to keep her memories and then find Peter.

As she rambled on her phone, mindful of the possibility that her father was listening outside her door, she quietly packed a duffle bag and then waited at her computer for a new email. Still nervous, she smiled anyway that this plan could really work. Tomorrow, she would go to school like normal and then ditch on a bathroom break, ultimately heading for the bus terminal.

It would be there she'd get her ticket to go see Peter. Claire knew that he'd set everything straight.

`I'm coming, Peter.'

She would go to see Peter so she could learn more about her abilities and find others like her.

She would go to see Peter so she could learn about how saving her would save the world.

She would go to see Peter because she would help save the world too.

She would go to see Peter because even though she felt she'd lost her family and friends in one day, with Peter she felt she'd gain so much more in her entire life.

“Memories shape our future. They are pieces in a greater construction.”

She would go to see Peter because he was a key in shaping her future. And in a future with Peter, she saw nothing ahead of her but the truth.