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Tweak says, "You're simply the best"

ɢᴀʟᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴡᴀᴛᴇʀᴅᴇᴇᴘ (galeofwaterdeep) wrote in colligo_threads,
@ 2010-04-16 04:40:00

Entry tags:

claire saunders, stephen hart

WHO: Claire Saunders and Stephen Hart.
WHAT: Meeting the new flatmate and coffee.
WHEN: Shortly after this.
WHERE: Apartment 110D.
RATING: Likely not very high.
STATUS: In progress.

Claire had never wanted anything so much as she had wanted to escape the Dollhouse, the hell she'd lived in for so long. They had put her back in her body, but it wasn't really hers she supposed, after what had happened, and filled her in on what she had missed. She felt sick inside with the knowledge of what she had done, of what they had done to her. It filled her with a physical ache to look at Topher and know what she had put him through. What Clyde had put him through using her body. She had been violated in the worst way, her mind shoved aside and her body used as a shell. Her Original Personality was gone, so it really was her body now, as much as it would ever be. As if that meant anything really.

She hated them all, and she had desperately wanted to leave and never come back. But the reality of finding herself elsewhere was overwhelming, and she'd sat on the library steps for almost an hour before she'd thought to use her PDA. She'd never done well outside the Dollhouse. Being outside made her nervous, and people made her panic. Stephen was helpful and his directions gave her something to focus on. She had followed his instructions, and eventually made her way to the apartment building where she was meant to live. She found the door labeled 110D and nearly knocked before remembering it was her home too. She opened the door, looking around anxiously, almost wishing something had come up to make him leave. "H-hello," she said hesitantly. She still wasn't quite in a place of trusting people.

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ikickdinosaurs
2010-04-16 09:44 am UTC (link)

Stephen was still in the kitchen, trying to work out what he should do. Cutter had given him a few essentials to tide him over, which was why he had been able to offer Claire some coffee in the first place, but he had almost nothing else in the flat since he hadn't managed to go shopping yet. He'd have had to leave the flat for that and while he would do that soon enough, he still wasn't sure it would be a good idea. He was still working on getting his head round things, after all. Looking round at the sound of someone opening the door, he lifted the mug of coffee he'd made for Claire.

"Hello," he replied, before walking out into the hallway to meet her. "I've got your coffee here, I hope it's oka-" He paused when he saw her. He took in the obvious scars on her face at a glance, his eyes widening when he noted how close one of them came to her eye. She was extremely pretty, even with the scars, although clearly very nervous. He smiled very slightly and then held the mug out towards her. "It's nice to meet you, Claire."

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galeofwaterdeep
2010-04-16 03:38 pm UTC (link)

Claire had never been a very social person. She never left the Dollhouse and rarely had much to do with her coworkers beyond professional conversations. Social anxiety, paired with mild agoraphobia, made interacting with others a painful chore most of the time. She had often wondered if it had been intentional, a trick of programming on Topher's part to keep her from leaving. She certainly wouldn't have put it past him. But it was harder now to think of him so harshly, after seeing him so broken by Bennett's death. It was funny, almost. She hadn't thought he was really capable of emotions, but apparently that wasn't the case. She'd seen that.

"Thank you," she said softly. "I'm sure it-" He was looking at her scars, she knew, and it made her uncomfortable. It always did. Because people were curious by nature, and they inevitably wanted to know what had happened. And she didn't like to think about it, much less tell someone else. "I've been told they're quite the conversation starter," she said dryly, the comment coming more out from habit than any real thought. "It's...nice to meet you too, Stephen."

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ikickdinosaurs
2010-04-16 04:05 pm UTC (link)

He raised an eyebrow at her comment. "I'm sure they would be, yes." He took a step closer, glancing behind him to make sure that the kitchen door wouldn't swing shut on him, and gestured towards the living room. "Do you want to sit down to drink your coffee? I'll tell you what I know of this place, but it's not much more than I've already told you. Like I said, I haven't even been here a week yet."

He stayed where he was after that, absently wishing he'd made himself another drink of coffee, but that would have been his eleventh one of the day and he didn't fancy getting the jitters just yet. That was something to do in the evening, after all.

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galeofwaterdeep
2010-04-16 04:31 pm UTC (link)

Claire fought the immediate urge to step backward, keeping space between them. She wished that she could have been placed in an apartment alone, but apparently that hadn't been in the cards. "Yes," she said. "That would be...yes, thank you." Her smile was only slightly forced as she took the cup of coffee from him and took a sip. "It's very very good," she assured him.

Making her way over to the sofa, she sat down, still glancing around nervously. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm really not...I'm not good with people." At all. Being here with all this space and the people, it made her feel out of control.

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ikickdinosaurs
2010-04-16 05:11 pm UTC (link)

"That's okay," he replied, staying over by the doorway and shoving his hands in his pockets. "I'm not really in a people-mood myself right now. I, uh. I can leave you alone if you want? My friend lives just up the hallway so I can go and visit him, it's not a problem." At least, he hoped it wasn't a problem. He'd been in and out of Cutter and Jenny's place all week, just wandering from one flat to the other when he needed to prove to himself that he wasn't trapped in one place. Maybe they were pissed off, although Cutter wouldn't have offered the couch for him to sleep on if they were, right? Right.

He ducked his head and scratched at one of the scars on his neck, then tried to think what he should tell her first.

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galeofwaterdeep
2010-04-16 05:44 pm UTC (link)

She didn't quite believe that he wasn't good with people, but then she noticed the scars and somehow they put her at ease. Maybe he understood better than other people would. "No," she said, "it's all right. I guess it would probably be worse to be alone here...wherever here is." One of the residents of this city had stopped her and tried to explain things, but it hadn't accomplished more than making Claire incredibly uncomfortable. "Someone said this place is called Colligo?" There? See? She could have a conversation with another human being without panicking. She was proud of herself. She took a sip of coffee and tilted her head thoughtfully. "I've never heard of any place with that name...but I was always more focused on science than history in school."

That was what her memories said anyway.

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ikickdinosaurs
2010-04-16 06:41 pm UTC (link)

"Colligo? No, I've never heard of it either," he admitted, and given that he'd been pretty much all over the planet in the years since he'd left school, that pretty much confirmed what Cutter had told him about it being some other planet. He felt like it should surprise him a bit more, but given that he'd been dead this time last week and now he wasn't, he wasn't going to take anything for granted any more. And this coming from a man who'd been to the Past, the Future and been chased through a shopping centre by a Deinonychus.

He looked over at Claire again. "Cutter said it's some other planet. Cutter, uh, he's my friend. From down the hall. He says weird things happen here as well, but I don't know what they would be. He didn't say."

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galeofwaterdeep
2010-04-18 11:46 am UTC (link)

"I mean...I'm familiar with the latin term," She said, because she had taken Latin in school, or they had programmed her to think she had. "Which really...'to gather or acquire'...it sounds like someone is amusing his or herself at our expense." Because really, what kind of name was that for a place where people were apparently kidnapped and kept? If it was supposed to be funny or ironic, Claire thought they'd missed the mark. She certainly wasn't amused anyway. She would have considered it more, but Stephen's next words surprised her.

"Another planet?" she asked. She was on another planet. This was crazy. It was unbelievable. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe none of this was real. Maybe she was trapped in the Attic. Maybe they had never really let her go. No, it didn't do any good to think like that. "That's just...I'm not even sure what to say to that, honestly."

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ikickdinosaurs
2010-04-18 04:41 pm UTC (link)

Nodding as Claire spoke about the meaning of the name of the city, he couldn't help the scowl when she continued speaking. Just what he needed, someone else apparently trying to manipulate his life. Not that it was much of a surprise. Someone (or something) had gone to a lot of bother to bring him back from where he'd been, and then to put him here with the one person who could help him get through it. Call him a cynic, but he didn't think that had been done out of the sheer goodness of that someone/something's heart.

"Another planet, yeah. I know, it sounds mental, but..." he trailed off with a small shrug. "It makes as much sense as anything else in this place."

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galeofwaterdeep
2010-04-18 04:47 pm UTC (link)

Claire watched as Stephen scowled, and fought not to flinch. She really wasn't good with confrontation, and clearly he wasn't happy with what she was saying. "I'm sorry," she said immediately, looking down into her cup of coffee rather than at him. "I guess that's probably not what you want to hear, is it?" Who wanted to hear that they were probably being toyed with by some sort of higher power...if you were the spiritual type...or just a screwed up but powerful individual, which Claire was more inclined to believe.

"I guess," she said, finishing her coffee and setting the cup down on the table. "I wish I could say this was a huge departure from reality for me...but my life was never exactly normal."

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ikickdinosaurs
2010-04-18 05:33 pm UTC (link)

"What? Oh, no. Not really, no. And you don't need to apologise. I'm just, I'm still... adjusting." How well he was managing it was yet to be seen, but he was working on things as best he could.

When she mentioned her life before arriving here, he crossed over to sit on the far arm of the couch from her. He hugged his arms close to his chest so that he wouldn't start fidgeting with his fingers, then looked over at Claire. "What did you do, if you don't mind my asking. I know you said you're a doctor. Is that a medical doctor?"

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galeofwaterdeep
2010-04-18 05:39 pm UTC (link)

"I can see how it would be an adjustment," Claire said carefully. She had never been a fan of small talk, and she really wasn't sure what to say. This was possibly the longest conversation she'd ever had with someone who wasn't a coworker, and she was starting to wish she could just close herself up in her room and hide.

She looked wary when he approached, but relaxed as he sat at the other end of the couch. At his question, she smiled ruefully. I'm whatever they want me to be, was her immediate instinct, the bitter words highlighting how she felt right now. But she couldn't bring herself to say them. That would bring too many questions. "Yes," she said. "A medical doctor. I was the doctor for a...private facility."

She twisted her fingers together in her lap for a moment. "And you?"

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ikickdinosaurs
2010-04-18 07:16 pm UTC (link)

"I... I was a lab technician," he said, "at CMU in London. Evolutionary Zoology. Cutter was the lecturer, I did all the setting up and labs. It was good." Back when he wasn't worrying about Helen being in his shower when he got home or things from the future kidnapping Abby or fuck knows what. It was second nature to not talk about those things to people outside of the ARC, though, so the almost-lie was out of his mouth before he could even think about telling the truth. "We were on secondment, though. When we were, uh." Killed. "Taken."

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galeofwaterdeep
2010-04-18 08:32 pm UTC (link)

"That sounds nice," Claire said with a small smile. "I started off in research, before..." The words felt wrong on her tongue, even though it was what she remembered. "I was seconded as well...in a sense. They needed a doctor, and that's what I was. It was classified, and it wasn't what I was used to, but I was fond of my patients. They're the one part of it all that I miss. They were good people." Because she wanted to protect them, for all that she resented them for serving as a constant reminder of what she had once been.

"Most of them, anyway," she said, her hand coming up almost unconsciously to touch one of the scars before she jerked it away. She got to her feet and walked to the kitchen, washing out the cup and drying it. Suddenly the apartment felt too small.

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ikickdinosaurs
2010-04-19 06:44 am UTC (link)

That sounded far too familiar. Classified and not what he was used to. He stayed quiet as she spoke about her patients, frowning again at the end when she almost touched her scars as she trailed off. Huh, so maybe a patient gave her those?

She was up and out of the room before he could say anything, and he stayed where he was for a moment, unsure. He got up after a minute and crossed the hallway to stand in the kitchen doorway. Watching her dry the mug, he pinched at the bridge of his nose before speaking. "Look, I can leave if you'd rather be on your own for a while. Your room's the one on the left, by the way."

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