Story: my karma ran over my dogma
Summary: Logic dictates that Claire should go to Dartmouth. Unfortunately, her gut has chosen a really awkward time to rear its ugly, wibbly-wobbly head, and it is now dictating in a rather high-pitched, wavering voice that it doesn't think it can manage without Quil being within biking distance.
Notes: How the Imprinting Discussion might've gone had Claire not been a normal child (because every time I imagine it as a conversation held with a normal teenager, running and threatening with knives always play key roles).
Disclaimer: Gahness. No ownage.
Claire Martin is a very logical person. The proof is there in front of her, facing her in neat, blocky handwriting. Reasons Why I Should Go Away to College, the list says. There are a lot of reasons, amongst them her grades, the full ride offered by Dartmouth, that she's been interested in the genetic differences between the special Quileutes and the Makah since she was old enough to know what a chromosome was, and the thought of living without the oppressive reign of her parents.
But there's a big check in the Reasons Why I Should Not Go Away to College list, and it's got brown fur and warm hands.
It's also overprotective and overbearing and overheated.
In terms of The Few Things Claire Martin Did Not Decide On by Using a Pro-Con List, Quil Ateara ranks fairly high. And he has stayed there, in her life, and despite the many times that Claire has done something stupid he has not yet fled in terror from her presence. Not that Claire has done anything wrong or harmful to Quil. Well, she did once crash his beloved car into a tree, but that was mostly an experiment in inertia, and besides, he'd forgiven her ages ago for that.
Oh, and that one time she'd been testing the solubility of various acids and had accidentally kind-of sort-of forgotten to remind Quil and Embry that their orange juice carton was not, in fact, full of orange juice but rather a mix of various acidic compounds. But the Doc had said that both of their intestinal tracts were fully healed back in May of last year, so that had turned out all right, too.
Quil just makes Claire feel guilty sometimes – something about the way he tries to keep her safe and looks so let down on that really rare occasion that she has to cancel their plans makes Claire's gut clench. He's her best friend and her big brother and he annoys the hell out of her, but she still loves him, and the thought of leaving him makes her stomach curl into little tiny knots.
Dartmouth is 3173 miles and 1108.80000 feet away from La Push. That is 3173.21 miles between Claire and the parents who are so utterly scared of her friends ("Why don't you want to spend time with people your own age, Claire? That Michelle, at your school, she's awfully nice, isn't she?") and her uncle, who believes that she should be more careful around Quil when he's in wolf form ("We may be human, Claire, but that doesn't mean we're infallible as wolves, and doing stupid things is just going to get you hurt.").
But that's also 3173.21 miles between Claire and the other half of her soul. She's done research on her theory, actually, and although she's not certain that she entirely believes what the tribal elders have told her on the subject, she is more positive that there is a release of certain neurotransmitters in the brain that conducts a feeling of love and wonder and comfort whenever she spends time with Quil. She also believes – and has told Quil and Embry and Jacob and Uncle Sam on numerous occasions, always to smothered laughter – that there need be nothing romantic about having a soul-mate. She is righteously indignant when they mock her, but they always insist that they're appreciating the irony.
Claire hates not getting the joke.
She also hates choices that cannot be made by logic. Dartmouth has offered her a full ride because of everything that she's done and her grades and that she did it all on a rez, too, which is something they apparently cannot wrap their heads around but that she is perfectly willing to capitalize on.
Or would, were she not feeling so torn.
Logic dictates that she should go to Dartmouth. Unfortunately, her gut has chosen a really awkward time to rear its ugly, wibbly-wobbly head, and it is now dictating in a rather high-pitched, wavering voice that it doesn't think it can manage without Quil being within biking distance.
Feeling disgusted with herself, Claire gives into her weaker half and puts down her pen and flees the house. Her mother is in the kitchen, guiding her father through the steps of making a berry tart, and she doesn't bother giving them an excuse. They know where she's going.
She takes her bike (more economically and environmentally efficient than the car that her sister Maggie left behind when she went to Western last year, not to mention that the three mile rides gives her almost exactly her required 30 minutes of daily cardio-vascular exercise) and arrives outside of the house just in time to hear the click and roar of the television being turned on to the pre-game show.
She drops her bike in the back and steps into the kitchen, where Jacob and Renesmee are being cute and slow-dancing to something that no doubt only their extra-sensory hearing can make out over the yell of the commentators coming from the next room. Nessie smiles blandly at her and Jacob gives her a wink, and the pair continues whispering to each other and being generally Nessie-and-Jacob-like. They are no doubt supposed to be getting refreshments for everyone else.
Embry and Quil are in the next room, arguing over some football minutiae. Quil turns almost immediately and pushes Embry off the couch with his elbow, making room for Claire at his side. "How is the decision coming?" he asks her, and because Claire doesn't like sounding unsure, she settles for a bland "Fine."
"You here for the game?" asks Embry, smirking at something.
"No," replies Claire, frown twisting at her lips as she settles into Quil's side. "When have I shown any affection for the game in the past?"
"You'd think after spending so much time with us she'd have found a sense of humor by now," laments Embry, and he gives her an affection noogie. Claire doesn't bother making any violent gestures in return, because Newton's third law renders any physical attacks against any of the special Quileutes futile; however, she does store the offense away in her mind for later consideration.
"You're a dead man," notes Quil, who wraps an arm around her shoulder and they melt backwards into the mushiness of the sofa. Claire has told him and Embry many times that they will have orthopedic concerns later in life because of the Sofa of Death (or so Jacob calls it), but they persist in keeping it.
"Only if she can catch me," says Embry with a wink.
"What brand of shampoo do you use?" Claire asks, more to terrify him than out of any actual curiosity.
He blanches. Embry is rather protective of his hair.
Quil snickers and grips her shoulder tighter for a moment. "Nicely done, sweets."
"Hmm," she says, but smiles a bit at the praise.
They watch football for a while after Jacob and Nessie return with drinks, Claire and Nessie nursing water as the boys swill beer with the sort of nonchalance that can only be had by men who know that they don't get drunk easily.
At the first quarter break, Claire retires into the kitchen to watch Nessie as she putters around putting together snacks. Technically, she and Jacob live off-rez and she shouldn't even be over the border, but in the three years since the Cullens moved to Iceland, the rules about Nessie's presence have become lenient. Besides, Claire has noticed that Nessie's frankness in manner has won her the respect of at least a handful of the Quileute elders, and most of the important ones are in that handful. It helps that, as Jacob's wife, she is a de-facto member of the tribe.
Nessie is humming something under her breath, gracefully half-dancing her way around the kitchen, when Claire asks (a little suspiciously), "Are you all right, Nessie?"
"Oh, I'm wonderful," says Nessie. "Why do you ask, Claire?"
"You're humming," says Claire. "You hum when you're happy, and you're never happy when you have to come here and watch football because you don't like football. It's suspicious behavior."
Nessie laughs, clear and bright. "Being happy isn't suspicious behavior, Claire."
"Hmm," says Claire, who still thinks that Nessie is acting oddly. "Why are you happy, then?"
Nessie dances closer and bends down and whispers (overly dramatically, in Claire's opinion, seeing as how everyone in the house can hear her regardless), "I'm pregnant." She glows.
"Congratulations," says Claire. "How have the tribal elders reacted?" She doesn't understand why Nessie frowns at her, as it is a valid question. The pack is an important part of the tribe, but that doesn't give Jacob, who will probably replace Sam as head some time in the next twenty years, free reign over his life.
"They don't know," says Nessie. "We're waiting to tell them until the right time."
"Isn't Sam honor-bound to tell them?" asks Claire, leaning back and resting her elbows on the counter. "He can already smell the blood-change, can't he? This could be construed as a danger to the safety of the tribe. Will you and Jacob be banished from La Push again?"
"I don't think that will be a problem," says Nessie, who nevertheless bites her lip and looks over Claire's shoulder. Claire thinks that her concern is viable, and she also thinks that Jacob and Nessie having a baby doesn't make much sense. While they are both considered to be of the proper age, neither has a secure job (although Nessie certainly has financial security) and their life is in constant upheaval, torn between the tribe and the Cullens.
"Having a baby doesn't make sense," says Claire, trying not to sound frustrated.
"I love Jacob," says Nessie, now looking less worried and more amused, "and I want to have his child."
"Pain," points out Claire, "smelly diapers, little appreciation for at least twelve years, possible exile from La Push and the Quileute, a 5% increased chance of divorce should your child be female, hazardous encounters with pointy objects and a whole array of possible genetic deficiencies. I could list them for you, if you like. RH incompatibility and lack of access to proper medical authorities are probably at the top."
"Love," counters Nessie, "joy, happiness, and the awareness that I will have a little beautiful baby that is the best of both Jacob and I."
"Technically, there is no fail-safe that dictates a child will be the best of the parents," Claire cannot resist interjecting.
"You're missing the point, Claire," says Quil, who is suddenly standing in the doorway. Nessie's face drops into blankness and she leaves, closing the door to the living room quietly behind her.
"What point?" asks Claire.
"Having a child and falling in love is not a matter of logic." He looks frustrated, tired, and that familiar feeling of guilt and almost-loneliness washes over Claire. She is used to at least understanding Quil, because he seems to be the only one of Uncle Sam's pack who is able to decipher her logical reasoning (which does not require deciphering, but rather practicality), but right now he seems very lost.
"But falling in love is a matter of logic," interrupts Claire, frowning. "The flood of oxytocin and phenyethylamine in the brain—"
Quil crosses the kitchen in two very large steps and puts his palms on either side of Claire's face and kisses her quickly, in a very brutal fashion. Claire's brain shuts off with an almost audible click, and although there are about fourteen million things she should be thinking about and categorizing right now, all she can do is sit there and wait for the moment to end or go on forever.
"Not logic," he says when he pulls back. "If love were logical, this definitely wouldn't have happened." Then he kisses her again, and Claire's tongue is lightly running along his lower lip and her fingertips are ghosting across his chest, and her thought process is suddenly, brightly clear in a sparklingly fragile motion.
"There's something that makes you fall in love," she says accusingly, pushing him away. "The pack. That's it, isn't it? Why Aunt Leah hates Aunt Emily some days, and why Nessie and Jacob are always together, and why no one will tell me about Taha Aki's mysterious third wife. I knew you were hiding something from me, and every time I went to Billy Black he just smiled mysteriously at me in a very infuriating fashion—"
"It's called imprinting," interrupts Quil, whose lips are level with Claire's forehead, and he has managed to wedge her body between him and the counter, and his hands are on either side of her hips as he bends his head and speaks into her hair. "It's like a sledgehammer into your chest, and it takes over your entire life."
"Really?" asks Claire, who cannot help but be intrigued, even though this means that everyone has lied to her for the past eighteen years. She can at least moderately accept the lying, as it was no doubt intentioned to preserve her relationship with Quil (plus, she's patient and she'll have her revenge on that eventually), but she begins to wonder how exactly this imprinting business is managed. "Does anyone know if there's a particular connection between—"
"Claire," interrupts Quil again, whose body is hotter than normal and vibrating a little, "don't you care?"
"Of course I care," she says indignantly. "I can't be interested in a new phenomenon? Just because I'm not hysterical doesn't mean that I haven't accepted the imprinting and am now exploring the possibilities."
"Claire," says Quil a little desperately, "I imprinted on you sixteen years ago."
"Yes," she says, unsure as to what that has to do with anything. "As you first met me sixteen years ago, that makes sense, doesn't it?"
"Sweets, I am in love with you."
"Well, yes, I'd gathered that," says Claire irritably. "I am not an imbecile, Quil."
He pulls himself away from her, and says lamely, "Well . . ."
"Well, what?" asks Claire.
"What about you, Claire?" he finally says.
"Well, I'm not in love with you," says Claire, and she sees a bit of him crumple away and his body goes rigid; in an instant he is pushing himself away from her. "But," she adds lamely, "I do really like you. And you're my best friend and my soul mate." All of which is true. He stops with his hand on the backdoor, and she crosses her arms across her chest, hoping that the truth is enough.
"Is there ever a chance . . .?"
"Give me some time," she says, shrugging, more to give him hope and to get that awful expression off his face, the one that worries her stomach. "As you're the only member of the male species I can really stand, I suspect you are a statistical favorite."
She doesn't have the heart to tell him that only 13% of long-distance relationships result in ten-year or longer marriages, but from the way that his fingers had trembled as they had pressed to her neck below her ear, she thinks that he understands how tenuous a romantic connection they really have. Luckily for them, their relationship isn't all romantic.
Thoughts? How well/badly did I manage That Most Awkward of Discussions?