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Claire's default post-canon life.
Aug. 26th, 2025 08:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
infinite1upsBy default as I write her, Claire is several years removed from the Ferris wheel jump of the Heroes finale. I estimate she was around 18-19 at the finale, and I typically age her up to her mid-late twenties for RP purposes.
The jump becomes something she regrets within days (or even hours) of doing it. It's safe to assume the media would hound her, and Reborn alludes to her becoming some kind of spokesperson for evolved humans. This, in my opinion, clashes with Claire's (admittedly very stupid) reasons for jumping in the first place. She jumps because she mistakenly thinks it's going to get people off her back and let her go live her life. Obviously this was never going to be the case, but she's stubborn.
There's also the absurdity in thinking she'd even do something that endangers evolved humans like that. It stands to reason that she'd be aware that outing herself would out evolved humans as a whole. They're at the carnival to protect evolved humans from being used/killed by Samuel Sullivan in the first place! Yes, they're also saving the general public who are there as carnival patrons, but the reason they were all drawn there is Samuel and his use of evolved humans to bolster his own power.
It doesn't make any goddamn sense, after everything she's done to sace and protect evolved humans, that she'd so stupidly out their existence to the entire world. She knows the government is willing and able to round them up and detain them without due process. This is something she has literally experienced. Why would she give them another reason to do so, and at the same time give them the potential for public backing to carry it out?! She wouldn't do that. I don't know why Heroes fucking decided she did.
Anyway, ranting aside, I'm fixing it as best I can, here.
After her initial public statement the night of, she puts out another with the help of her family and Tracy Strauss. It's basically giving her reasons for the stunt, that she just wanted to live openly and freely, and she meant no harm to anyone. And with that she tries to go back to school at Arlington.
At first it's quiet until people realize that's where she is, and the media starts hounding her again. At this point she's fully in a relationship with Gretchen, who is excited to be with a minor celebrity. Gretchen pushes Claire to do more press, to embrace her newfound fame and do something cool with it. It's something that Claire considers - this uproar is her fault, and the responsible thing to do would be to get out in front of it in an attempt to control the narrative and be a good role model for evolved humans.
But that's not why she jumped. She jumped so she could live her life on her own terms.
There are several arguments with Gretchen about this, and eventually Claire gets tired of it. One weekend while Gretchen is away visiting her family (they argue about this too, as it's solid evidence that Claire isn't as committed to the relationship as she doesn't want to meet her girlfriend's family), Claire packs up her dorm and hits the road.
She closes her bank account, destroys her phone, and buys a burner phone for emergencies, then basically goes off the grid. For months she's essentially a missing person, only sending sporadic texts to let her mom know she's not dead. Pretty early in her road life, she sells her car and buys a vintage Volkswagen bus she calls Penny. Noah eventually finds her, and while he's mad and disappointed at the way she handled things, he's impressed that she managed to stay hidden on the road for so long.
In the meantime while she's traveling, the piranha pit of press dies down some and finds other stories (evolved humans and otherwise) to focus on. She's recognized in public less and less. But Claire finds she loves life on the road, so she's not in any hurry to go settle down anywhere. She does, once she's found by Noah, start visiting her family and friends again. It's easy enough for her to make cash via drinking contests like she did in Mexico with Nathan, which she spends on her survival. Mostly staying in motels or renting cheap apartments from shady landlords for a few months at a time, never lingering anywhere too long.
Fun fact: she's visited all fifty US states, saving Alaska and Hawaii for last. Both of which she visited with Noah Bennet, just because she wanted to commemorate the occasion with her dad.
Nathan set up a fund for her before his death, something to set her up for college or whatever else she wanted to do. She's reluctant to use it at first, stubbornly insisting on paying her own way. Sooner or later she bends on this, because if people want to apologize in cash, she might as well let them. It's something she uses when she eventually settles down.
This is where things open up - depending on the plot she could be still traveling, or settled into an apartment somewhere. I generally assume that Angela Petrelli's influence is involved wherever Claire ends up. For example, if she settles in New York City, she's living in the luxury apartment once inhabited by the late Charles Deveaux, fellow founder of The Company and longtime friend of Angela. It's also the same place where Claude Rains had his balcony of pigeons back in season one(which I'm gonna go ahead and assume now that Claire has taken over caring for).
Alternatively, she could be living in Isaac Mendez's old loft, but in canon that Mohinder Suresh takes that over as his lab. Still it wouldn't be much of a stretch to assume he moves out and Claire moves in, either back to India or elsewhere. These are important settings in Heroes canon, and I'm a slut for a throwback.
Otherwise, the Petrelli family has lots of money and Angela wouldn't hesitate to throw it around to exert a little control and/or if she's getting softer in her later years, to ensure a safe place to live for her only granddaughter. So she could be living anywhere, and I generally assume if it's an apartment building, there are people there on the Petrelli payroll.
In her farm AU, she's used Nathan's trust fund to pay for it and set up the means to earn income to keep it running.
This general backstory is supplemented with little anecdotes of lore for her, a mix of headcanon and RP history that I'm incorporating into her story.
As always, thank you for reading! If there are any questions/suggestions, feel free to comment or PM!
After her jump, the media frenzy immediately swarms in. She gives a statement that night (eventually I'll write something for this), and is ushered away by her dad and Peter. (And maybe Tracy Strauss.)
She naively thinks she'll be able to go back to her life, but FAFO time sets in pretty quick. Obviously in outing herself she's also outed the existence of evolved humans as a whole, which puts them all in danger. Some, like in Heroes Reborn, would do their own copycat videos. But I imagine there'd be pushback from many others.
There's also the absurdity in thinking she'd even do something that endangers evolved humans like that. It stands to reason that she'd be aware that outing herself would out evolved humans as a whole. They're at the carnival to protect evolved humans from being used/killed by Samuel Sullivan in the first place! Yes, they're also saving the general public who are there as carnival patrons, but the reason they were all drawn there is Samuel and his use of evolved humans to bolster his own power.
It doesn't make any goddamn sense, after everything she's done to sace and protect evolved humans, that she'd so stupidly out their existence to the entire world. She knows the government is willing and able to round them up and detain them without due process. This is something she has literally experienced. Why would she give them another reason to do so, and at the same time give them the potential for public backing to carry it out?! She wouldn't do that. I don't know why Heroes fucking decided she did.
Anyway, ranting aside, I'm fixing it as best I can, here.
After her initial public statement the night of, she puts out another with the help of her family and Tracy Strauss. It's basically giving her reasons for the stunt, that she just wanted to live openly and freely, and she meant no harm to anyone. And with that she tries to go back to school at Arlington.
At first it's quiet until people realize that's where she is, and the media starts hounding her again. At this point she's fully in a relationship with Gretchen, who is excited to be with a minor celebrity. Gretchen pushes Claire to do more press, to embrace her newfound fame and do something cool with it. It's something that Claire considers - this uproar is her fault, and the responsible thing to do would be to get out in front of it in an attempt to control the narrative and be a good role model for evolved humans.
But that's not why she jumped. She jumped so she could live her life on her own terms.
There are several arguments with Gretchen about this, and eventually Claire gets tired of it. One weekend while Gretchen is away visiting her family (they argue about this too, as it's solid evidence that Claire isn't as committed to the relationship as she doesn't want to meet her girlfriend's family), Claire packs up her dorm and hits the road.
She closes her bank account, destroys her phone, and buys a burner phone for emergencies, then basically goes off the grid. For months she's essentially a missing person, only sending sporadic texts to let her mom know she's not dead. Pretty early in her road life, she sells her car and buys a vintage Volkswagen bus she calls Penny. Noah eventually finds her, and while he's mad and disappointed at the way she handled things, he's impressed that she managed to stay hidden on the road for so long.
In the meantime while she's traveling, the piranha pit of press dies down some and finds other stories (evolved humans and otherwise) to focus on. She's recognized in public less and less. But Claire finds she loves life on the road, so she's not in any hurry to go settle down anywhere. She does, once she's found by Noah, start visiting her family and friends again. It's easy enough for her to make cash via drinking contests like she did in Mexico with Nathan, which she spends on her survival. Mostly staying in motels or renting cheap apartments from shady landlords for a few months at a time, never lingering anywhere too long.
Fun fact: she's visited all fifty US states, saving Alaska and Hawaii for last. Both of which she visited with Noah Bennet, just because she wanted to commemorate the occasion with her dad.
Nathan set up a fund for her before his death, something to set her up for college or whatever else she wanted to do. She's reluctant to use it at first, stubbornly insisting on paying her own way. Sooner or later she bends on this, because if people want to apologize in cash, she might as well let them. It's something she uses when she eventually settles down.
This is where things open up - depending on the plot she could be still traveling, or settled into an apartment somewhere. I generally assume that Angela Petrelli's influence is involved wherever Claire ends up. For example, if she settles in New York City, she's living in the luxury apartment once inhabited by the late Charles Deveaux, fellow founder of The Company and longtime friend of Angela. It's also the same place where Claude Rains had his balcony of pigeons back in season one(which I'm gonna go ahead and assume now that Claire has taken over caring for).
Alternatively, she could be living in Isaac Mendez's old loft, but in canon that Mohinder Suresh takes that over as his lab. Still it wouldn't be much of a stretch to assume he moves out and Claire moves in, either back to India or elsewhere. These are important settings in Heroes canon, and I'm a slut for a throwback.
Otherwise, the Petrelli family has lots of money and Angela wouldn't hesitate to throw it around to exert a little control and/or if she's getting softer in her later years, to ensure a safe place to live for her only granddaughter. So she could be living anywhere, and I generally assume if it's an apartment building, there are people there on the Petrelli payroll.
In her farm AU, she's used Nathan's trust fund to pay for it and set up the means to earn income to keep it running.
This general backstory is supplemented with little anecdotes of lore for her, a mix of headcanon and RP history that I'm incorporating into her story.
As always, thank you for reading! If there are any questions/suggestions, feel free to comment or PM!
