So here is my third attempt at fanfiction and my first attempt at a Heroes one. I started writing this ages ago but only recently started to type it up to get it on here. For now it's mostly about the building friendship but it will start to head towards femslash in the later chapters. So there is your initial warning!
Disclaimer: For once I actually own a character or two in my story XD. However, I sadly do not own any of the Bennet family or other Heroes characters that I may include.
Enjoy and please review to let me know how I'm doing XD
The Fire Within – A Heroes Fanfic
Chapter 1 – Strange Beginnings
'Great. New town, new school and I have no idea where I'm going.' Claire Bennet was stood staring at a rather useless map of the school showing where her classes were supposed to be. Suddenly her attention was drawn away from the map to a hand waving in front of her face. She looked up and saw a girl in a black and pink cheerleaders uniform standing in front of her.
"Hey you're the new girl. Claire, right?" the cheerleader asked.
"Err, yeah that's me," Claire replied.
"So what class are you looking for?"
"Biology, I think." Claire tried to fumble for her class list. "Yeah. Biology in Lab 3."
The cheerleader gave Claire a smile before linking her arm and walking down the hall with Claire. "Well Claire, it's your lucky day. I have that too, follow me. I'm Chloe by the way."
The two girls walked for a few minutes with Chloe making more small talk asking Claire about herself but gave up quickly as Claire became more and more evasive with her answers. The girls arrived at the lab and Chloe unhooked her arm from Claire's and opened the door. "Well, here we are." They walked into the lab. Chloe waved at her group of friends, all of whom were in cheerleaders uniforms Claire noticed, and nodded towards Claire mouthing "New girl."
Claire looked around the lab, taking it all in. In the corner Claire noticed a girl in fairly ragged clothing writing furiously on a piece of paper. She looked up and caught Claire's eye for a second before returning to her paper.
"Who's that?" Claire asked indicating the girl in the corner.
"That's Max. She used to be alright, really into music. She used to play at the local club a lot. But then her dad died and she turned into this complete weirdo," replied Chloe.
"What do you mean by weirdo?"
"Well she stopped talking to everyone, started sitting on her own, ditching classes and sometimes she gets this strange look on her face and she starts twitching." Chloe glanced quickly at Max, then back at Claire. "That part's hard to explain but if you see it you'll understand." Chloe had whispered so only she would hear.
"Chloe would you care to take your seat please," came a male voice from behind the two girls.
"Yes sir," Chloe replied before quickly saying to Claire, "I'll see you after to help you to your next period," and taking her seat amongst the other cheerleaders.
The teacher turned to Claire, "so who do we have here then?" he inquired.
"Claire Bennet," she replied giving a small sheepish smile.
"Well then Claire, I'm Mr Turner." He turned around to pick up a textbook off the shelf by his desk and handed it to Claire. "Here's your textbook. If you could take a seat too we shall begin."
Claire turned away to look for a seat to take. There was only one seat left, next to the girl Chloe had been telling her about; Max. She walked over and sat down next to Max.
"Hi, I'm Claire Bennet," she said quietly as the teacher started the lesson.
"Max," the girl replied not looking up from her paper.
"What you writing?" Claire inquired leaning over slightly to have a look. Max responded by snapping her writing pad shut and putting it to the side of the desk. 'Ok.' Claire thought. 'Defiantly a tick in the weird box.' "So, what are the good places to go round here?"
"Look..." Max snapped in a low growl, "I don't know why you re insistently trying to talk to me..."
"I'm just trying to make friends." Claire whispered defensively.
"Well I'm not really a friend kind of person." Max replied looking hard into Claire's eyes. Claire looked into Max's eyes too, they were brown but after a second she could have sworn they started turning bright red. Claire was only just able to register this before Max's head whipped around to the front of the lab. Claire noticed that the girl's jaw as set, her hands clenched into fists and every muscle in her body seemed to be contracting. 'So this must be what Chloe was trying to describe to me' Claire thought deciding that maybe she shouldn't try talking to Max again during the lesson.
As soon as the bell went Max grabbed her things and left the room. Claire collected her things and walked over to Chloe.
"Hey you ready for your next period?" Chloe asked.
"Yeah I've got gym, I think..." Claire replied.
"Cool. Well I'll show you the way to the changing rooms then I'll meet you there for lunch if you want."
"Sure." Claire gave a small smile and they made their way to the changing rooms.
Gym passed without much trouble and soon she was being lead to the cafeteria by Chloe to be formally introduced to Chloe's friends. When they entered the cafeteria Claire scanned her eyes over everything, taking it all in. As her eyes passed over the corner they locked onto another pair of eyes, bright red, almost glowing, before the owner stood up and abruptly left the cafeteria. She recognised the blazing eyes from earlier, Max. Intrigued by Max's behaviour so far Claire wanted to follow her and find out what the hell was wrong with her.
"Umm, Chloe where's the bathroom?" Claire asked.
"It's just down that hallway on the right," Chloe replied pointing in the direction Max had just fled.
"Thanks, I'll be right back." Claire barely said before darting around the chairs and tables to get to the hallway.
"I guess she really had to go," Chloe commented to a blonde haired girl beside her.
Stood in the hallway Claire looked around for some inclination as to where Max had gone to. "What am I doing trying to follow some crazy girl because she doesn't like to be around me. This is stupid," Claire muttered to herself. She was about to turn and head back to the cafeteria when she caught the scent of smoke. Claire rushed to where the smell was emanating from and was lead to the girls bathroom.
Cautiously Claire pushed the door open keeping as quiet as she could and closed it before too much of the smoke smell could escape and attract attention. She moved slowly down the line of cubicles to the one at the end, nearest the open windows. She stood outside the closed cubicle and listened to the quiet 'click, click' sound of a lighter before hearing a 'whoosh' sound.
"Ah shit," Claire heard the girl inside the cubicle exclaim. Claire heard a 'thump' and the door opened slightly. She moved forward and pushed the door gently open. The girl inside had her back to her but she could tell from the clothes that it was Max. Claire was about to ask what the hell was going on but she noticed that Max's boy was tensed once again to the point of shaking.
Claire reached out to touch Max's shoulder. Just as she did Max span round and grabbed her wrist. She locked her eyes with Claire's and Claire noticed that Max's eyes were burning red brighter then any normal person could get their eyes to go, even with contacts. Claire broke her gaze from Max's eyes and turned them towards her wrist. At first she thought that the light coming through the frosted glass of the window was throwing shadows onto her skin. Then she looked closer and saw that the area around which Max had grabbed hold of her was burnt black and blistered. Her mouth opened in shock, of course it didn't matter because she would heal, but what if it hadn't been her that had walked in on Max?
Suddenly Max's head snapped round to look at Claire's wrist and she quickly let go and stepped back bumping into the toilet. In the split second between turning her head and letting go Max seemed to have returned to the status of 'normal' human being. She dropped down onto the toilet with her head in her hands. Claire took another look at her wrist just in time to see the charred and blackened shape of the hand that had grabbed her before it finished healing.
"I'm so sorry," Max whispered bringing Claire's attention back to the girl sat in front of her. "How bad is it?" she asked not moving to look herself.
"It's nothing," Claire replied softly. "See for yourself." She held out her, now fully healed, wrist waiting for Max to look up. At first Max didn't show any sign of wanting to move but after a minute she slowly started to look up until she caught a glimpse of the perfectly healed skin. She grabbed hold of Claire's wrist, gently this time, and examined it.
"But it was burnt. I saw it... I..." Max stammered out.
"The light plays tricks in here." Claire shrugged. "Are you ok?"
Max was sat there with her mouth open staring at Claire's wrist before slowly lifting her head up to look at her face. Her eyes had gone back to the brown colour they had been the first time Claire had seen them. She could see the pain etched across Max's face and then the sorrow mixed with relief in her eyes.
"So... you wanna tell me what was going on?" Claire asked. Max just dropped her hands and head so she was staring at her shoes. Claire crouched down in front of her so that she was at the same height as the girl and gently, but firmly, lifted her chin up so they were face to face.
"Why don't you come over to my house after classes. I know someone who might be able to help you understand what's going on." Max's eyes widened in shock at this comment.
"Umm... umm... yeah... yeah sure." Max eventually stuttered out. Claire gave her a big smile and got a small one in return. A bell rang outside the bathroom.
"I think we should get to class. Are you going to be alright?" Claire asked whilst helping Max to her feet.
"Yeah, I'll be fine." Max replied walking with Claire towards the door. "I guess I'll see you later," she said to Claire as they parted ways.