The Life of Layton and Claire (Rewrite)
I shall explain the reasoning behind this soon. I just want you to read it first, then hear why I'm restarting this story. Sorta. Also, fear not, if any of you readers are fans of the original, I shan't be removing it simply because I like to look back at it and see how much I feel my work has evolved over the time I have been active here on Fanfiction.
The pain was agonizing. She felt such regret she couldn't stay with him longer. That she would be disappearing and leaving him in a horrible state of grief. He had gone through that already 10 years ago, and eventually healed. Now it was back to the way it was all those years ago. Cursed time.
"I suppose this is it, Hershel," she said sadly, looking over to him with a small, watery smile. "I have to go back to my own time. Back to that day when…. we parted."
"No, Claire," Layton began in a low, sad voice.
"Im sorry I can't stay," she said, walking over to him. He pulled her close into a hug. She then stood back slightly, stood a little on tip toe, and kissed him on the lips. It was brief, tender.
She then turned and began walking back down the alleyway.
"Claire, wait!" Layton called after her. She turned to face him, expecting it to be the last time she ever would. A warm glow enveloped her, surrounding her body like an outline. Layton had to admit, it seemed to enhance her beauty in some dark way. He knew it signalled she was running out of time.
"We had so many, plans for the future," she began, lifting up her glowing hands, observing them, before dropping them and looking back at her old sweetheart. "You won't forget will you?"
She knew the question wasn't really needed. Of course he would never forget. How could he? he knew they would be both happy memories, and now a source of sadness, as it woukd remind him of her fate.
"Our shared past. And our…. lost future."
"YOU CAN'T GO!" The Professor burst out.
She gasped, not expecting such an outburst. She supposed it couldn't have been entirely unexpected. As good a man as he may be, no one can hold in their emotions forever.
"I don't want to say goodbye again," he said, his voiced mixed with anger, sadness and confusion. "I can't! I won't!" His body began to shake slightly, becoming more violent and pronounced within a matter of seconds.
"I know you," she told him, with another small watery smile. "And I know you'll stay strong. After all, thats what a gentleman does," she reminded him. "I must go now Hershel. Thank you, for everything."
Just as Caire was about to say the one word she really did not want to, something happened.
The warm glow around her vanished. She looked down at her hands. They were not glowing. She looked at her feet. Not glowing.
"Wha- what?!" She screamed in shock inside her head. "Shouldn't I be going? Why have I not gone back?"
Questions raced around inside her head like comets. But then she realised. It didn't really matter. There was one thing, or more technically, one certain someone that was more important than a couple of questions about why she never warped back to that day at the lab.
Layton had been standing a few metres down the alley. His head to had just been buzzing with questions, but he pushed them aside as Claire ran into his arms with a small squeal of delight. She held him tight as though never wanting to let him go. He returned her hug with pure delight in the knowledge she was to stay with them. She began to cry slightly, out of pure happiness. He closed his eyes calmly, and they stood there for moments, holding each other.
They did not know how long they stood there. Luke had remained quiet, not wishing to disturb their moment of happiness. Eventually, they released each other and stepped back.
"Why do you think I'm not returning Hershel?" she asked. She had no idea why that was the first thing she asked, but the question was still burning inside her head.
"I can honestly say I'm completely clueless," the Professor said. "But there;s one thing I do know. I'm so happy that you're staying Claire." They embraced again briefly, before he kissed her tenderly.
So long. It had been so long since they had enjoyed a moment like this. You know what they always say though. All good things must come to an end. Luke didn't want to interrupt, but he felt that at some point he must. He remained quiet for a moment longer, before speaking.
"Umm. P-professor," he nervously piped up.
"Yes…. Luke," the Professor took a moment to register properly that Luke was speaking to him. When he did however, he turned to listen with a slightly embarrassed blush on his cheeks. It may not have been noticeable at a distance, but where Luke was standing it was very noticeable. He was slightly surprised. He had never thought the Professor was the type who could get embarrassed enough to blush.
Luke wished he had thought what he was going to say. He really didn't have anything in mind to say at all. So he just asked the first thing that came to mind.
"Do you think we ought to be heading back now?" he asked timidly.
"Hmm," the Professor pulled out his pocket watch. It looked remarkably similar to the one he had given Claire, but the difference between his and her's was that her's had a simply love heart carved into it. His meanwhile had an L carved into it in a swirly style font.
(Points to whoever guesses what the L stands for.)
"Hmm. Perhaps we ought to be my boy," Layton areed. "I do believe you are quite correct there. It has grown late."
They began to walk out of the alleyway. At its entrance however, the Professor stopped suddenly.
"What is it Hershel?" Claire asked concernedly.
"It just occured to me," The Professor began. We haven't a vehicle to return home in. We travelled around London via bus but I haven't any spare change."
"What about the copy of your car Don Paolo made?" Luke asked. "You landed it safely enough so it'd still work right. We could drive that. Or fly! The view up in the air was amazing!" Luke said excitedly.
"I have to say I'm hesitant about using the vehicle for such a purpose," Layton said.
"Oh come now Hershel, he's just excited, and he's just a boy," Claire reminded him with a smile. "And he's right, it was a fantastic view."
"Hmm," Layton considered it for a moment before conceding. The trio began walking back to the car when a familiar, low grumbling voice called his name.
"Layton! I was wondering where you had gone man," Chelmey called. he ran over to him "Here, we recovered something unusual from the bottom of the Thames. Whilst I was discussing the events of the past few days with a few other higher up members of Scotland Yard, we noticed something smoking and flying across the skies. It landed straight into the Thames."
"What was that object in particular?" Layton asked.
"Well Senior Inspector Grosky leapt straight into the waters to retrieve it" The Inspector continued. "Lucky to the object had landed in the water. Judging from the smoke it had been blazing hot before."
"Anyways, so Grosky came back up moments later holding this," The Inspector produced an object from his coat pocket.
"My pocket watch!" Claire burst out.
"Hold on one second here madam," The Inspector said, turning to her looking cross. "I thought you were Claire Foley from the blast that happened a decade ago. How are you standing here now! Explain yourself!"
"Inspector, I can honestly say none of us have even the faintest idea," The Professor interjected.
"Oh really!" The Inspector grumbled.
"Inspector, its honestly a mystery. Dimitri Allen knew what caused Claire to warp hear, but she was expected to return to the day of the blast before long," Layton explained. "What caused her to remain here in the present instead is a mystery."
"Hmm," The Inspector glared at the Professor. "Well Layton, I know you're not the type to feed rubbish to the authorities, and considering it was through your own little detective work the Prime Minister was recovered," The Inspector admitted.
"So I suppose, given those circumstances I can let you leave here without any further questioning from me," The Inspector said. However, I will have to write up a full report of not only my work but of what I just learnt here. So I can't guarantee you won't be called into the Yard for a chat about this sometime soon." With that, the Inspector turned and marched away.
"Wait!" Claire called. She ran up to him.
"Yes," Chelmey turned to face her.
"Thank the Inspector who recovered this for me won't you," she asked politely with a smile. "And thank you for bringing it to us over here as well Inspector."
"All right. Good night to you three," The Inspector said, before turning and walking away again, back to where a group of Scotland Yard officials were standing talking. "Oh yes, Layton. I saw the young girl, Flora, I believe you said her name was, getting inside that flying contraption of yours. Just so you needn't fear for her whereabouts."
"Thank you Inspector," Layton said gratefully.
Claire returned to where the others were standing, and the three all clambered into the replica car of Don Paolo's.
"Professor!" Flora jumped out from her seat to hug him. "I was so worried when you began flying back over to the machine. I was really scared."
"Not to worry dear," Layton assured her. "As you can see, we're all here safe and sound. Your concern however is appreciated thank you."
"It was Claire wasn't it?" Flora asked nervously.
"Yes," Claire responded with a smile.
"But I thought, that…. you were going to return to your own time?" Flora asked, confused.
"We're not sure why I didn't return either," Claire said. "We're honestly clueless."
"Well, its nice to know you get to stay," Flora said.
"Thank you so much for saying that," Claire said. "I'm glad to be in such good company of a fine young gentleman and charming lady." Claire said with a smile, referring of course to Luke. The Professor must have taught him well, and Flora seemed to have also taken up similar habits.
"Shall we be off now," Layton said with a smile. Layton fired up the engine and they soon set off, and the little flying car claimed the skies once again.
"I can't believe this old thing survived the blast," Claire said, a trace of awe detectable in her voice, as she stared down at her most cherished gift.
"It is remarkable indeed my dear," Layton agreed. "I would never have thought it possible to survive such a blast. And how truly fortunate it landed near where we were and the good Inspector Grosky kindly retrieved it. We must thank the man in person some day."
"I agree," Claire said.
"What a lucky chance it landed nearby us," Luke said. "I wonder what the odds of that are."
"Undoubtedly fortunate," Claire said. "I'm so glad to have this dear old pocket watch back again."
The car landed outside the Professors home moments later. They all climbed out and entered the Professor's home. Luke yawned.
"Tired?" Claire asked him with a grin.
"Its odd, I felt wide awake earlier," Luke said. "Its like the day just caught up with me," he said with a smile. "I think I'll head off to bed."
He bade the Professor and Claire goodnight and went upstairs. Flora, looking equally tired followed suit, leaving only Layton and Claire downstairs.
"So Claire, would you like to take my bed for the night whilst I occupy the sofa?" Layton asked. He admitted silently in his head that he felt awkward at the thought of another sleeping by his side.
"Oh come now Hershel," Claire said to him with a grin. "We shared a bed 10 years back and you never had a problem with that."
"Its just been so long," he told her quietly.
"It'll be fine Hershel," she told him. "Not like we're off fighting more mechanical machines of mayhem, madness and destruction."
"Very well," he said. They went upstairs and entered the Professor's room. Claire laid down on the bed, and before Layton could ask if she wanted to borrow a simple black robe to sleep in rather than her day clothes, she was asleep, breathing lightly.
Layton changed into his bed clothes quietly, a plain grey shirt and trousers and slipped into bed beside her. Moments later, he too drifted off into a plain, dreamless, but good sleep.
Jeez, this has gotta be the longest amount of time I ever put into writing a chapter for a story. Some of them have taken a fair amount of time, but this one was possibly up too, or even longer than 90 minutes worth of writing. I don't know if that translate into a lot or a little too some, but it certainly feels like a lot too me. Or maybe I feel that way just because I finished writing it at 1 o'clock in the morning.
Alright, anyways. Like I said at the start of this chapter, an explanation as to why I am rewriting this Fanfiction. The short answer is, I really regret not properly finishing this story.
The long answer is, I think it was a shame how I took a long break from my writing too do other stuff and then when I returned I placed this story onto the back burner and went off and wrote some other stuff. Hiccup's Twin, the Rayman and the Nightmares Empire story. Sadly, both other works that I haven't finished. Anyways, I wanted to get back into writing this for quite some time.
However, I didn't just wanna keep writing this story. I wanted to improve upon this story even further. Without trying to sound arrogant or whatever, I think my general concept for this story was a good one, and judging from the reviews I got back, many others seemed to appreciate the idea behind it too, even if the writing itself wasn't quite as good as some may have wanted. Thankfully people were nice enough too not heavily criticize me and instead provide useful feedback.
I strongly recall some of the first ever reviews I earned on my stories, even after publishing this story well over 18 months ago, and one of them was telling me to use a wider variety of descriptive words and so on, and another was about making the moment of joy that Claire would in fact remain on earth with them last a little longer.
I hope I have managed to achieve that while still retaining the story concept that I think many of the original readers were able to appreciate. I like too think I put their suggestions into practice here, but also in my other work. Specifically the whole descriptive words part. But like I said, I also re-did this story too give what the original reviewers wanted. More joy and so on.
I also put in extra moments that the original story lacked. One example would be Flora. I actually noticed near the end of writing this that I had more or less forgotten her entirely. Nice job brain. She's left behind not only by the Professor & Luke but now the players have forgotten her. In all seriousness, I think the ending, because she wasn't really seen in it was the main reason I hadn't included her in this, because her character is somewhat minor in the game.
In fact, look back in my original draft of this, no mention of the poor girl in chapter 1. And chapter 2. And most of chapter 3. But also, like I said, she wasn't really included in Lost/Unwound Future's ending. Whilst she was seen in the last 4 cinamatic cutscenes, she didn't speak. And in the last few moments of dialogue where Layton is talking too the other characters when Celeste is really revealed as Claire, Flora makes no appearance at all.
Anyways, I realized when re-reading it that it made no sense how she was there when I wrote that only Layton, Luke and Claire returned back to the Professor's house, so I also sought to correct that anomaly. Another moment I added was Claire's retrieval of her pocket watch. I just thought it would be a nice bonus scene to include.
Anyways, I feel this note from me has gone on long enough. I don't know when I will get back into continuing this re-write. It may take awhile considering that I'm still trying to get kicking again and get back into the habit of writing regularly, and I wanna continue the Life after Legacies fanfic. Its kinda my favourite to be honest.
If anyone was interested in reading the original, Life of Layton & Claire, I will post a link below, and as I said, it shall remain on my page. Fear not my readers, I'm not throwing it out.
Link, clicky - The Life of Layton and Claire - Link, clicky
Anyways, my dear readers, for those of you who have stuck around this long and actually bothered to read this massive note from me, (Its over a page long, I kid you not, jeez) I have one final message for you all.
STAY AWESOME!