Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise; you know what to expect from this site.

Feedback: Always appreciated.

The Not-So-Average Girl

Walking up to Ron's house, Kim wasn't entirely surprised to realise that a part of her hoped that Claire wouldn't be there. As much as she wanted to know more about what had happened last night, at the same time she recognised that learning anything more about Claire's impossible survival would force her to face up to some serious changes in her future that Kim wasn't sure she was ready to face.

God, I haven't even graduated high school yet and I've already been face-to-face with a dead girl who came back to life; how many people can say that? Seriously, how many people would want to face that on its own?

Still, as much as a part of Kim wanted to give into her fears, the rest of her knew that she couldn't do that. She wasn't sure if she had actually saved Claire's life or just sped up an existing process by pulling that branch out of her head like that, but she was definitely interested in learning what had happened to her fellow cheerleader, and she knew that, for all his protestations of cowardice, Ron was just as curious about this new turn of events.

When she rounded the corner and saw Ron standing in front of the house, she smiled gratefully at her old friend, but she had only just settled into position to wait when Claire came out of the house, moving so briskly that Kim wouldn't be surprised to learn that the other cheerleader had been waiting at the window for both of them to get there.

"Hey," Kim said, nodding tentatively at the girl who had been dead just the previous night. "So… how are you?"

"Fine," Claire said as she started walking towards the school, leaving Kim and Ron to exchange glances before hurrying after her.

"So…" Kim looked uncertainly at Claire, after the other girl showed no sign of wanting to start the conversation herself. "How long have you… I mean, what was that about?"

"I don't know," Claire shrugged.

"You don't-?" Ron looked at her in surprise.

"I know that just… that I'm not normal, believe me, I just don't know why it happened to me," Claire clarified as she looked at him, a bitter edge to her voice. "For the last few months, I just… I mean, maybe it started earlier and I just didn't know it, but I only realised then that when I got hurt, I just… I heal."

"You heal?" Ron repeated.

"In seconds," Claire nodded, shooting a grim smile at Ron. "I've broken pretty much every bone in my body, stabbed myself in the chest, shoved a two-foot steel rod through my neck, jumped off an old scaffolding, and I don't have a scratch on me."

"Ouch," Ron said, Rufus nodding in sympathy as the naked mole rat poked his head out of Ron's pocket, each clearly lost for a better response.

"And you don't… burn either, right?" Kim asked, looking tentatively at the other cheerleader.

"Burn?" Claire repeated, looking curiously back at Kim.

"As in when you're burnt you heal quickly?" Kim clarified. "So… that was you who saved that guy on the train, right?"

"How-?" Claire began as curiosity shifted to shock.

"Of course!" Ron snapped his fingers before slapping his head in exasperation. "God, how did I miss that? No wonder you were running away from that fire so quickly; you pretty much got over the burns-"

"You were there?" Claire turned to look sharply at Ron.

"We were just passing by and saw the accident from a road further up," Kim clarified, stepping urgently between Ron and Claire. "We weren't exactly in a position to do anything about it, and we only saw you from a distance, but I guess I… when I saw you lying there, I just…"

She shrugged. "It clicked, I guess.

"It 'clicked'?" Claire looked at Kim uncertainly. "You found me with a branch in my head and you just… you worked out that the girl at the train was me?"

"Well, I'd noticed you acting a bit off around Jackie every time she started talking about her 'rescue', and then I thought I saw something off after that time Brody ran into you on the football field…" Kim shrugged as she looked at Claire with a new sense of curiosity. "What did happen there?"

"Brody broke my neck when he ran into me and I got it back into place before anyone else noticed what had happened," Claire clarified.

"Ouch," Ron winced at that image.

"Yeah," Claire said, rubbing her neck at the memory before pausing as her fingers traced the area where the branch had been just a few hours ago. "What I don't get is why I stayed conscious at that point; I mean, doesn't a broken neck just kill you?"

"Not always," Kim said. "I mean, from what I've read in some of my mom's old books, you'd need to be extremely lucky- and 'lucky' depends on how you define surviving something but still being left permanently paralysed- but it's possible to do just enough damage to a neck to avoid killing someone straight away…"

She looked at Claire with a more uncomfortable expression. "Actually… I mean, I hate to bring this up-"

"Go ahead."

"Well… it looks like you don't just heal, but your body also knows when to heal itself," Kim clarified. "I mean, if you broke your neck, your body could have just started knitting itself back together while your head was still twisted around…"

"Oh man, you could've been Torque!"

"Torque?" Kim and Claire looked at Ron.

"Nightwing villain in DC comics," Ron clarified.

"Nightwing?"

"The original Robin's name when he moved on from being Batman's partner," Ron clarified. "Torque was a corrupt cop who tried to trigger a gang war and got his head twisted backwards by one of the mob bosses he was manipulating; he only just survived because his airway wasn't damaged, but he needed some seriously screwed up physical therapy to save his life afterwards, and that's on top of him having to learn how to walk all over again because they couldn't turn his head back around."

"…Yeah, that sounds gross," Kim nodded, before she frowned at Ron. "Wait; if his head was jammed backwards, how could he walk?"

"He had some physical therapy to teach him how to use his body in that state and was given these freaky mirrored glasses that let him see what was going on 'behind' him."

"Right…" Kim said, looking uncertainly at Ron before glancing back at Claire. "I think we can all agree we're just glad that didn't happen to you, right?"

"Yeah."

"OK then, getting back to the real issue right now…" Kim swallowed slightly as she looked apologetically at Claire, "I get that this is… going to be a tricky question, but… how did that even happen?"

"Huh?"

"Well, the way you fell on that branch…" Kim shrugged, hoping that her tentative memories of whatever few details her mother had shared about her work were accurate. "I'm not saying someone set out to kill you, but you couldn't have done that to yourself, so how did it happen?"

"I'll tell you later."

"What?" Ron looked at Claire in surprise. "Look, we want to help-"

"And I… I appreciate that," Claire said, turning to squeeze Ron's shoulder as she gave him a brief smile, giving Kim a similar grateful grin before her expression became more solemn. "It's just… I need to sort something out for myself before I decide what I'm going to do about that."

"I…" Kim began, before she paused and looked at Claire with a new sense of contemplation.

As much as she wanted to help her friend, she had to recognise that she and Claire had only just started talking about anything more detailed than cheer routines; since everything Kim had seen so far suggested that Claire's apparent attacker hadn't actually intended to kill her, she apparently wasn't dealing with an unrepentant killer, so it was really up to Claire how she chose to handle things at this point.

"All right," she nodded at Claire. "Just… we're here if you need us, OK?"

"Got it," Claire smiled back at Kim. "I… appreciate that."

It was a small moment, but as Claire smiled at her and Ron, Kim felt that they had made a crucial step forward in their new expanded relationship, even if none of them exactly knew what they were dealing with.