An Adventure in Time

Well, I’m a grandfather. I tried my darnedest to protect my little Claire Bear from two things in this world: death and boys. I guess I failed at both, but the good news is I have two delightful grandbabies, and they’re absolutely perfect. Perfect, I tell you!

Perfection.

“It looks like this one has a little bit of a rash,” the nurse said. “I can get you an ointment–”

“Shut your face,” I said to the registered nitwit. “He’s perfect!”

“That’s the girl.”

“She’s perfect!”

The only problem was that I had time traveled back a year to find out about them. I had lost my hobbit sidekick in an epic battle back in the present time, but I quickly replaced him with the Master of Time, Space and Star Trek Trivia, Hiro Nakamura.

“Greato Scotto!” the pudgy Japanese office worker said. “It is Noah Bennet!”

“Hello, Hiro,” I said. “We need to go back to the past and change some things.”

“Oh, no!” he cried. “No. Too many butterflies. I have been down that road before, Noah.”

“Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”

Hiro poofed us back to the Odessa Summit and the race was on. “Yatta!” I said excitedly as I caressed my gun in its holster.

“That is my line,” Hiro frowned.

The two of us ran around the expo in search of Claire and funnel cake. Hiro had some cotton candy, then went back in time and had it again. “Texas has the best cotton candy,” I told him. “That’s why it’s our state bird.”

With our bellies full of fried and sugary goodness, we set off to stop the explosion. Inside my old Primatech office was a security briefing I had put together. This told us exactly where the best places to detonate explosives would be, and that would be where we’d find our terrorists. And if there is one thing I like about finding terrorists it’s shooting them. But before we could find and destroy the evil-doers, we were interrupted by a visit from an evil-doer-turned-good-doer. Me.

“Quick! Hide in my bookshelf!”

“I’m not as skinny as I once was, Noah,” Hiro protested.

I explained that it was a secret doorway bookshelf. After pulling the prerequisite books, the shelves slid to the side revealing the secret room where I keep my secret files and Glen Campbell records. We hid as the me from the past discussed changes to the security protocols with my old employer from the past, Erica Kravid. I could tell she was up to no good. My security plans were perfect, just like my grandbabies, and here she went about changing them without telling me. The nerve of that woman. I should have shot her back then. I waited expecting my old self to do just that.

He didn’t.

“How could I have been so stupid?” I sighed. Then I got an idea.

“Don’t think about it, Noah,” Hiro said. “Butterflies, remember? You do something crazy in this time and you could destroy the future!”

“Fine!” I yielded.

The old me and old Erica finally left, so Hiro and I made our escape. Then we ran into my even older boss, Angela Petrelli.

“Oh, Noah. Good, can you drive my car around front? Also, I need this dry-cleaned.” She handed me something that was once a fox.

“I don’t have time–”

“Actually,” Hiro interrupted.

“Not now, Hiro.” I continued, “I have to find Claire! I need to protect her!”

“This again, Noah?” Angela wrinkled her nose and said, “She’s at that hospital where they take the poor. You really need to get her microchipped, honestly.”

And that was where I found out the cold truth. My Claire Bear had died. I couldn’t believe she had been taken from me, but there was the proof. A blonde-haired body under a white sheet in the hospital morgue. “This is definitely her,” I said. “Who else would have blonde hair like that in Texas?”

Hiro came back with additional bad news. “No yatta,” he told me. “There were too many bombs, too many butterflies. I cannot stop the explosion without making it worse.”

Suddenly I wanted to shoot someone. Not like usual, like for fun or when I’m just bored. This was something else. I was angry. I wanted vengeance. I wanted to shoot someone not to give me joy, but to give them pain. “Now can I shoot someone?” I said.

Goodbye, Claire Bear

“No,” Hiro answered. “Butterflies. Now let’s get back.”

But Hiro’s power didn’t work. We flickered around a bit but went nowhere. And the explosion happened. We couldn’t stop it. Everyone blew up, just like before. And Claire is dead, just as I had feared. I returned to my only hope, my only future. The two darling grandbabies I left with Mrs. Petrelli.

“What do we do with them?” I asked. “Do I hire a nanny or something? I’m not great with diapers.”

“These babies will save the world,” Angela said. “I saw it in one of my menopausal dreams. As you know, they’re prophetic.”

“I have to protect them,” I said. “And I have just the solution. How are your powers now, Hiro?”

He blinked and disappeared. Then he returned and said, “Yatta!”

“Excellent. Take these babies to the past. That way by this time they’ll already be potty-trained.”

“And Erica won’t be able to find them,” Angela said. “She’ll be looking for babies, not teenagers.”

“Exactly.”

“I’ll go with them,” Angela offered. “I need a new hobby. I tried pottery, but it’s easier just to buy ceramics.”

Then I noticed Erica walking down the hallway.

“Good, good,” I said. “You two go take these babies to the past. I’ve got a butterfly to step on.”

“What?” Hiro asked.

“I mean….I’m going to….delete the security footage….to erase evidence we were here. Yeah, that’s it.”

I know what I must do.

No one can stop me now.