Five Years Later: Chapter Five
Standing face to face with the woman who had tried to kill her five years earlier, and who was now apparently also Claire's girlfriend, Gretchen suddenly feels her earlier panic return. Claire has still not answered all of her questions. Instead, she has only managed to bring up more of them.
Feeling lost, vulnerable, and most of all confused, Gretchen falls back on the only sure thing she knows. She stiffens her back and attempts to channel her inner cop.
"Excuse us," she tells Becky, grabbing Claire's arm to turn her around.
"Hey!" protests the diminutive blonde.
Gretchen pulls her away from Becky's earshot, huddling in close so that Claire can hear her.
"Okay, the tour is over," she informs Claire in a heated whisper. "You're going to talk, and you're going to talk now."
Claire sighs, but slowly nods in agreement. Gretchen lets go of her arm, and is surprised to suddenly realize how tightly she had been holding on. For a millisecond, the indentation of Gretchen's fingertips show up blotchy and red on Claire's skin. But, just as quickly, they disappear.
Claire turns back to Becky, giving her an apologetic smile. "Sorry," she tells her with a shrug. "Looks like we're moving on."
Becky slants her eyes a little at Gretchen. "You sure you don't want me to tag along?" she asks Claire.
Claire comes close to laughing at this suggestion. "Positive," she replies.
"Okay," says Becky, still looking Gretchen over distrustfully. "If you need me, you know how to find me."
"Right," answers Claire with a nod.
After shooting Gretchen one last look of warning, Becky nods too, then disappears.
Claire turns back to Gretchen, who is standing with her arms folded across her chest, giving Claire her own look of warning.
Claire sighs, but smiles nonetheless. "Okay. So, I probably should have thought more about how that would effect you."
"You think?"
"I was going to tell you in the elevator," Claire swears, coming closer. "But, just as I was getting ready to say it, we started going down again, and ... well ..."
"Which part were you going to tell me?" Gretchen asks. "The part about her being here, or the part about the two of you being a couple now? Which, by the way, seems really, really creepy to me. And ... weird!"
"I told you, Gretch ... a lot has happened in five years."
"Yeah? Well, you're going to tell me all of it," Gretchen tells her. "Now. And, I mean everything."
"But ... don't you want to see the rest of this place first?" Claire implores, coming just a little bit closer. She smiles up at Gretchen hopefully, eyes twinkling. "You haven't even seen the pool. Did I tell you we had an olympic-sized pool?"
Gretchen takes a step back, determined to stay focused and on target. "Look, Claire. If so much has changed in five years, then ... why should I even trust you? Clearly my partner doesn't. Maybe he's the good guy here."
Claire is visibly hurt by this accusation. She furrows her brow, and says, "Is that how you really feel? You think I could be lying to you?"
"Why don't you want to answer all of my questions?"
"Who said I didn't?" asks Claire.
Gretchen is dumbfounded at this. "What? Are you kidding me? You've been dodging a full interview all morning!"
"A full interview?" laughs Claire, still not able to see Gretchen as an officer of the law.
Gretchen narrows her eyes menacingly. "I am still a cop," she reminds her. "I still have a job to do."
Claire smiles, hiding something behind her twinkling green eyes as she looks Gretchen over.
"Fine," she finally says, raising one eyebrow at Gretchen in response. "Ask me anything you want. Except, not here. Follow me. There's something I wanted to show you anyway."
Claire begins walking down the hallway in front of them, watching and waiting for Gretchen to follow her. After a deep breath, Gretchen turns and follows, falling into step beside her.
The hallway is long and deserted. The lights above them flicker incessantly, giving Gretchen a kind of trapped feeling. It is the kind of hallway that a victim would hobble down in a horror movie, trying desperately to escape the killer behind them, even as they suffer through their broken foot or bullet wound. Gretchen can almost see the blood smear on the walls.
"So ... when you gonna start popping off those questions?" Claire asks, breaking the silence.
Gretchen jumps a little at the sound of her voice, putting a hand to her heart in surprise. "What? I'm sorry. I was off somewhere else," she tells Claire.
"Gretchen, are you sure you're a cop?" Claire asks, suppressing a laugh.
"Seriously, Claire?" groans Gretchen in response. "You're making fun of me again?"
Claire stops walking and grabs Gretchen's arm so that she'll do the same.
"I'm sorry," she promises, looking up into Gretchen's rolling eyes with sincerity. "Really. I'm not making fun of you."
"You're not making fun of me? Really?" replies Gretchen, looking doubtful.
"It's just ... I forgot how cute you can be ... when you're scared."
"I'm not scared," claims Gretchen, sounding like someone who is only trying to convince themselves.
"See! Like right then," Claire says, studying Gretchen's face closely beneath the flicker of the lights. "When you said that, your eyes fluttered."
"They did not ..." Gretchen starts to argue, but stops short. She has accidently locked eyes with her old friend, and is again feeling as if her heart might explode. Claire is smiling up at her in that secretive way, which always left her weak in the knees five years ago, and is obviously just as effective five years later.
She tries to break eye-contact; tries to remember what they were even talking about, but, it's as if her mind has been hijacked. All she can do is stare into those twinkling green eyes and hope desperately that she is at least remembering to breathe.
"You shouldn't be scared," Claire finally says, backing off a little. "Not of me, anyway."
Gretchen blinks hard, finally breaking the spell she's under, and tries once again to focus.
"Should I be scared of Becky?" she asks. "I don't understand, Claire. How in the world did you two ever ... I mean, I didn't even know if you ... Claire, are you gay?"
"Are you?" Claire asks, raising one eyebrow again and smiling with amusement. "Didn't you tell me once that you had been with plenty of guys?"
"I said I had dated plenty of guys," Gretchen corrects. "But I was nineteen at the time. A lot of guys at that time meant, like, ... five."
"I see."
"And ... you are dodging questions again!" Gretchen points out, as if she's just realized this herself.
"I'm sorry," chuckles Claire, "What was the question again? Am I gay? You have all these cop questions you want to ask me, but that's the one you want to start with?"
"Well ... yeah," replies Gretchen, "I mean ... profiling is a very important part of what I do."
"Profiling, huh?" asks Claire dubiously.
"Yeah, profiling," insists Gretchen.
"Okay, I'll play along with this," agrees Claire with a sly grin.
She turns and begins walking again, and Gretchen follows, waiting as if on pins and needles for her response.
"As for the answer to your question," Claire begins, "Well ... I don't really know. I know that, right after you left me, I could hardly think about anything else but you. I know that I dreamt about you every night, for weeks, hoping and praying that you would come back. Clearly I had a little gay in me at the time, or, I wouldn't have felt that way."
Gretchen swallows hard, not knowing whether to feel flattered or heartbroken. "So ... how did you and Becky end up ..."
"Long story," says Claire, who then quickly adds, "which I'm planning on telling you all of, in just a second. For now, let's just say that Becky and I were kind of thrown together as allies, you know, given certain circumstances we were both in at the time, and ... well ... time took care of the rest. But, getting back to your question, I'm not sure if I could tell you if I'm gay or not. After all I've been through in the last five years, that's really been the last question on my mind."
Claire stops in front of a large steel door and opens it, flipping a light switch on inside. She gestures for Gretchen to enter ahead of her, and Gretchen steps slowly inside of what appears to be a kitchen.
Claire heads for the refrigerator, leaving Gretchen just inside the door. Gretchen watches with curiosity as Claire begins riffling through the refrigerator's contents.
"You know, I'm really not hungry at the moment," Gretchen tells her, feeling a little irritated by what she sees as just another stalling technique.
Having found what she was so madly searching for, Claire pops up with a proud, "Ah, ha! Found one!" And she is holding up a bruised and battered pear in her hand.
Gretchen comes closer, wondering what would cause Claire to get so excited over a piece of bruised fruit.
"Watch this," Claire tells her, her green eyes dancing with delight.
With Gretchen watching closely, Claire closes her eyes and puts her other hand over the pear, cradling it gently. In a moment, the bruises on the pear begin to fade. It's skin repairs itself before Gretchen's very eyes, turning a solid green, and looking pretty damn tasty all of a sudden.
Claire opens her eyes again, smiling with pride. "Pretty cool, huh?"
"But ... how did you do that?" Gretchen asks her, still in awe over the spectacle. "I thought your ability was to heal yourself?"
"That still works too," Claire informs her. "This is just an extension of that. One of the things that has happened in the last five years is that we've learned that we can expand our abilities ... on our own."
"All of you?"
Claire shrugs. "Anyone who wants to learn. It takes practice. But, Hiro is a really great teacher. He's the one who discovered this. But, Gretch ... that's the good news."
Claire sucks in her bottom lip and gives Gretchen an uneasy look. "I've kind of been saving the bad news for last," she says.
Gretchen swallows hard and braces herself. "Wh ... What's the bad news?"
"Maybe you'd better sit down first," says Claire, pulling a chair out for her.
