No explosion. No deaths of five million. No fear, no laws, no hunting and capturing and testing and more killing. There was a place things had gone right? After the initial processing of this enormous idea, Claire let go of him enough to free her hand and pinch herself in the arm. Hard.
But there was no waking up. Either that, or this pinching thing was completely overrated.
She looked up and for a moment there was a bit of a sheepish smile, the first trace of humor since she'd arrived here. "Works in movies," she murmured, then held on to him again, her chin on his shoulder to look over the city behind his back. It was overwhelming, knowing someone had changed everything, that people were alive and here in this city – and not just people, but the family she'd never had the chance to know.
"Is ours gone? Our timeline? Is that why we're here?" she asked, still looking out at the city, as though impressing the image into her brain would make this less dreamlike. Science fiction wasn't exactly her strong point, and she really wasn't in the right mindset to try to remember or absorb the telling of all the theories of time that existed, it was just the first question that came to mind. But there were more, hot on the heels of that.
"How?" She lifted her chin and pulled back to see his face, needing to know everything he could tell her. "How did he change it?" She didn't even know Hiro Nakamura, but the first time she saw him in person, she might well hug him. He'd fixed what was wrong with their world. Save the cheerleader, save the world. Except it hadn't. Importance placed on her she'd never felt worthy of, something that ultimately hadn't even happened. So what had saved the world?
In the shadows, Nathan had to bite back a response, reign in the temptation to answer the question she'd just asked, to tell her what it was that had changed the world – not just Hiro's act, not even just Nathan's own act, but who had been the final push to make him act. Save the cheerleader, save the world. And it was the truth. He'd discussed that very thing with the Hiro of Peter and this Claire's timeline, after all. But if he spoke now, he'd give away he'd essentially been hiding and eavesdropping, and even if speaking didn't startled her – he really didn't want to see her jump off a building again – he couldn't be certain that his concealment wouldn't make her angry or upset.