Clara (Part 3)

Once Clara found a new apartment she liked, she didn't hesitate to start moving as soon as possible.  She ultimately settled on just choosing the place that had the right combination of comfort, affordability, and proximity to her place of employment - you know, the normal considerations for normal non-vigilante individuals.

Amid the apartment search and subsequent moving period, she also tried to see if she could find out more about this person who had broken into her home.  She had given the police a rough description and that he worked, or at least claimed he worked, at the Globe.  She heard later from those police that the Globe had been contacted and had refused to offer any insights into who the "alleged" reporter had been.  Clara had tried to figure it out, but they had enough different by lines on their articles, and no photos of anyone, that she really had no idea.  After goggling the first five male names she found listed and discovering three of them seemed to be aliases and the other two were definitely not the man she had seen, she gave up.  She supposed if she really wanted to know who he was, she could track him down, but as long as he didn't bother her again, she didn't see the need.  She had already given him much more thought than she gave to most individuals, and she didn't quite like how that felt.  Or at least she didn't like how different it was.

After a few weeks had passed and she was safely settled in her new place, she put him completely out of her mind.  At least she did for a few days, because just over a month after she had met this mystery man, she came face to face with him again.

It was late on a Friday night, around 2am, and she had prevented two muggings and scared three drunk people into calling a cab instead of trying to drive home - some might say not the best use of her talents, but life-saving nonetheless.  She was hiding behind a dumpster, trying to determine if this was the best spot for her to wait for trouble, when she heard a man shout, "Stop thief!"

She ran out of the alley and heard a voice yell, "He went that way!"

Clara glanced quickly around, not seeing anyone running away.  Then her gaze fell on the man who was pointing with one hand and holding his phone in the other.  "Where - " she began.

And then the flash flashed and the camera on the phone made a series of rapid snapping noise.  And the man said, "Shit!"  And then she recognized him.  Though she certainly couldn't let on that she recognized him, since this was the first time this reporter and the "Lady Ninja" had met.

Rather than blow her cover, she simply did what she would have done anyway and exclaimed, "Did you really just take a picture of me?"

"N-no," he stammered, forcing a grin.

She took a big stomping step towards him, which made him flinch before exclaiming, "I took 20 pictures of you!  Okay bye!"  And he turned and ran.

Clara sighed, trying to decide if she should just let him go or chase after him.  It wasn't the first time she'd been caught on camera, after all.  Once, she had even let a small child pose with her for a shot.  She had a soft spot for little kids, or at least more of a soft spot than for adults.  But this was different.  She knew this man was a reporter.  He didn't necessarily have to know that she knew, but it was enough that she did know.  With another sigh, she took off running after him.  He wasn't hard to catch.

When she did catch up to him, she shoved him in an alley, a bit harder than she'd meant to, but not so hard that he fell over or anything, and demanded, "DELETE THOSE PHOTOS!"

Not only did he not delete those photos, but he grinned up at her and pressed a button on what was not his phone, but apparently a small digital recorder.  Her voice said back to her, "DELETE THOSE PHOTOS!"  Then looking like he'd won the lottery, he pressed another button and she heard her voice from a month ago say, "You BROKE INTO MY HOME."

Clara wanted to take a step back in shock, but she didn't dare.  That would only show he was right.  So would taking his device or demanding that he delete the audio.  So she didn't do any of those things.  She just stared at him.  And then after a silence that she cursed herself for letting go on for too long she said simply, "Who is that supposed to be?"

"That's you," he said.

She shrugged, doing her best to continue to feign ignorance, to which he said, "That's you, CLARA."

She wanted to throttle this man.  But that wasn't who she was.  She didn't hurt innocents.  And although she could argue the man who had broken into her home wasn't totally innocent of wrong-doing, there were much bigger fish to fry.  And what was he going to do with that audio anyway?  She was pretty sure that since it was just audio, he couldn't even prove it was her.  Well, she supposed if he did come up with some way to get the police involved and they had her come down for an interview as Clara, he could prove both voices were Clara's.  But how did he expect to prove Clara's voice was also the Ninja's?  He couldn't.  If nothing else, she could just use this to prove he was the one who broke into her apartment.  Maybe it would even help her press charges.

So ultimately she just sighed, rolled her eyes, and said, "Okay fine, keep the photos.  I don't care."

As she turned to walk off, she heard him stammering after her, "B-b-b..."  She couldn't help but smile.  What a buffoon.  She had probably worried about him for no reason after all.