Worst Day Ever
There was no sound but the quiet roar of the wild that chilled her bones. The stars shone above her, teasing her with their cheerful glimmer. She would never be happy again.
She lay on the cold, rocky ground, facing the sky, tears falling freely. No one could see her cry here. No one even knew she was here. She was alone – just like before. The earth beneath her anchored her to reality so that not even her brilliant mind could escape the nightmare that had become her life.
"I'm so sorry Artie."
It was her fault. It was always her fault. Her hand curled into a fist and she pounded the ground, biting her lip as sobs threatened to consume her.
"It's all my fault. I should have listened to you."
She should have listened to him a lot more than she did. He knows so much more than her. She closed her eyes. He knew so much more than her. Past tense. He'd promised to teach her, show her a world of endless wonder but he'd left her. Again. Another broken promise. She didn't blame him – he was trying to save her. He was trying to save the world. And she should have saved him.
"It's all my fault."
Heavy footsteps echoed through the empty desert. She sat up, senses on high alert. Her hand grabbed the tesler from her bag only a metre away. She wouldn't be caught off guard again. She turned, moving onto her knees, raising the tesler at the man who should have known better than to sneak up on her. "What do you want?" Her words came out harsher than she'd intended.
"Claudia," Steve Jinks raised his arms in the traditional gesture of surrender. "Put the tesler down."
"Sorry," She dropped the weapon, hearing it clatter against the rocks imbedded in the dirt of the South Dakota desert.
Jinks sat down next to her, straightening out his legs. He looked up at the stars and sighed.
Claudia looked at him, "Aren't you going to say anything?"'
He raised an eyebrow at her, "Is there any point arguing with you? You've convinced yourself that's it's your fault, which it isn't and you're not going to listen to me, whatever I say."
"True," She conceded his point; she wouldn't have listened.
Jinks offered a small smile then went back to star gazing. He tilted his head up and leaned back onto his hands.
"So why did you come out here then?" Claudia pressed, not understanding. The wind tugged at her cropped red hair but she didn't care.
"Misery loves company, I guess," He shrugged. "And you shouldn't be on your own."
"I'm fine." Perhaps if she said it enough she might convince herself.
"Liar."
"I hate you."
"Now that's an even bigger lie."
"Artie will kill you if you argued back like that to him," Claudia laughed a little then realised what she'd said and froze.
"Hey," he reached over and grasped her hand, squeezing it gently. "It will be alright again."
"Yeah? When?' She demanded hotly, turning to face him. "When the cows come home? When pigs fly?"
"I don't know," Jinks answered honestly, shaking his head.
"It's never going to be alright again," Tears started welling up in her brown eyes and she whipped at them angrily.
"You're allowed to cry."
"Myka's not crying. Pete's not crying. You're not crying. So why am I different?"
"Because Artie was our friend but he was your Dad," He said simply.
Claudia gave him a strange look, "No he wasn't. I wish he was but he wasn't."
"Yeah, he was," Jinks argued. "You loved him, he loved you. You looked up to him and annoyed him and listened to him and took care of him."
"And look how that turned out," She said darkly.
Jinks ignored her, "He was your Dad in everyway that countered. So you're allowed to be upset."
"Am I allowed to feel like the world is ending?" Her voice was small, childlike even. Tears slid down her cheeks, glistening like diamonds in the starlight.
"Come here," He opened his arms and pulled her into a tight hug. There were times that he forgot how young the tech genius was but this wasn't one of them. "You can cry. You can scream. You can take up knitting if you want to."
She snorted at that image and leaned in closer to Jinks, calming down slighting.
"You can grieve however you want to," He rested his chin on top of her head, looking out into the darkness. It seemed like they were the only two left in the world. "No one's going to tell you want to do."
"That was Artie's job," She smiled a little then it faded as suddenly as it come. "I should have listened to him more."
"He did know a lot of stuff, didn't he?"
"Yeah," She nodded. "What are we going to do now?"
"We," He said firmly, "Are going to do what he'd want us to do."
"And what's that?" She pulled back so she could look him in the eyes.
"Snag it, bag it, tag it."
"That's it?" She asked, surprised. She'd expected some grandiose statement about making the world a better place.
"That's what Artie would do."