It's been a very long time since I last wrote, apologies for that.
.. means that it's a new scene; . means that it's a scene relating to the theme within that section.
No matter how hard she tries, she can't get Myrnin out of her mind.
She's tried everything from sedatives to alcohol, from travelling the world to begging her brain to forget about him, to focus on Shane. But it's no good; nothing works. Her brain won't let her forget the face of the man she walked away from all those months ago.
It's the look on his face when she told him she wasn't ever going to come back that haunts her the most. She saw it for but a fleeting moment, but his eyes had crumpled with sadness, his mouth had dropped. In that moment, he was the epitome of sadness—and now that's a burden she must share.
She tried not to blame herself; she still tries. After all, it wasn't her fault that he had fallen in love with her; for all but a brief interlude, she had always been with Shane when working with Myrnin. It sure was difficult to deliver the 'we won't ever be a thing' card, but it wasn't her fault: he should have moved on.
The only problem was that she hadn't quite told him the truth.
..
The situation had been complicated at the time. Whilst she felt something more for Myrnin than friendship, it wasn't something she felt worthy of throwing her entire life away for. She had a marriage to Shane that, despite its ups and downs, was doing quite well, a stable job, and a life that could comfortably be described as happy. Why throw her life away for a series of could bes and potential happily ever afters with a serial killing madman who had previously confessed to only love her for her mind?
Claire still doesn't know how this changed, how her life morphed from being everything she had wanted since age sixteen to this…a life of loving (or at least the idea of loving) someone who could destroy her in less than a second, someone she knows next to nothing about. But, he was someone who, evidently, means more to her than anyone else in Morganville.
The end with Shane had begun on a Tuesday, she thinks, at breakfast over tea and toast. Well, she admits to herself as she takes yet another swig of yet another alcohol, the end began long before that. It was just that day that she had realised things weren't going to get better on their own.
..
"Have you been to his laboratory recently?" Shane had asked. Well, it was less of a question and more of a sneer, as though he knew the answer—or he thought he knew the answer. Part of the problem with Shane was that he thought he was right all of the time, and wouldn't accept the contrary.
It was his tone rather than his words that had irked Claire more than anything. She was used to subtle pokes and digs at Myrnin and anything between her and him; they were much less frequent following her decision to leave working with him, but they still occurred. What annoyed her most at this particular time was the fact that Shane was convinced he was right; she had done nothing to deserve his accusation, and she was sick of having to defend herself against blatant lies.
(Because, technically, she had done nothing. Feelings weren't an indication of being unfaithful: she hadn't acted on anything, and had suppressed any notion of a 'what if' to keep her life as it was, her supposed happily ever after. It wasn't down to her alone that their marriage was falling apart.)
Through gritted teeth, Claire had responded, stating that no, she had not been to the laboratory – just as she hadn't been there for more than six months. She had said the same thing to him every time he asked, deciding that it wasn't worth an argument over.
This time, however, she said more. "And, you know what, I'm absolutely sick to the core of you suggesting that I would do something, Shane. We've been together long enough that I thought you knew me better than that."
He muttered something, a few words that she didn't need to hear to know – 'I don't think I know you at all.'
Fury exploded in her at this point; she moved from A to B without thinking, ending up on the opposite side of the kitchen to where she had been sat, every limb shaking. Somehow between A and B she had caused the table to upend, sending toast and crumbs and tea and butter to the floor with an almighty crash.
"I don't want to be with someone who doesn't trust me and doesn't accept that I love them," Claire had said, enunciating every single word separately. "If you can't change, Shane, then this is it, we're over."
..
They tried for weeks and weeks, she had to give him that, but nothing was ever the same as it had been in the early days, before she had discovered even an inkling of how she felt about Myrnin.
It started off with him making her dinner complete with candles and sweet wine and soft piano music playing in the background. Her teeth were gritted before they had even finished their starters – she's always hated tinkling music, candles reminded her too much of the lab's poor lighting, and the last time she drank sweet wine she was unsuccessfully trying to entice a foreign scientist to fund her research. More than that, they had nothing to talk about. Despite her hatred for the music, Claire was secretly happy that it was there, because otherwise the widening gulf in the centre of the room would have been much more obvious.
(They had argued that evening, because he had cooked something using the best pans and had destroyed them beyond repair, and she apparently 'didn't show enough gratitude for his actions' by sleeping with him.)
((This was the first night they slept in separate rooms.))
.
After dinner, it was therapy.
They went to a Dr. Woods at the hospital, one that Dr. Mills had recommended: she was discreet, kind, and above all, successful. More than seventy per cent of those she saw reunited, or so she claimed – that she had statistics published made Claire more than slightly dubious, but she still attended.
Their first session ended after five minutes, when Shane accused her of having an affair.
Their second got a little further – Claire actually got to speak before Shane stormed off – but it was already looking bleak.
They made it to session ten, but by then it was pretty clear that it wasn't helping them whatsoever, something Dr. Woods didn't have to be subtle in suggesting.
.
Just before the end of therapy, their friends staged an intervention. Michael took Claire and Eve took Shane, and they tried their best to get to the crux of the problems facing their friends.
They didn't use the same tactics, though. Michael and Claire drank their way towards an early grave, with Michael secretly hoping that she'd reveal her feelings (or the problems they were facing) without too much hassle. Eve took Shane to a diner and pointed out everything he was doing wrong and got him to agree.
Claire admitted nothing except that she didn't think that she loved Shane any more, and that it was both of their faults that this wasn't working out.
Shane suggested that Claire was unfaithful, and that everything was her fault.
After Michael dropped her back off at her house (she couldn't think of it as their house any more), Claire sat with a mug of tea and stared at the far wall of the living room, thinking. When was it that she fell out of love with Shane, and when did she think that their relationship was irredeemable? More than that, why did it happen? She had everything that she had ever wanted, and yet none of it was enough.
In the back of her mind as usual was the memory of how she had stormed out of the laboratory that day, and the complete and utter radio silence between herself and the person who probably knew her best, academically at least. Amelie hadn't dared mention his name (or, more likely, tactically decided it wasn't a good idea considering the one time she had attempted to, Claire had almost destroyed her entire collection of antique books) and she hadn't been anywhere near 'his' area of Morganville since. She hadn't needed to: Gran'ma Day had passed away the previous year, and none of Claire's work colleagues lived in the vicinity. He hadn't disturbed her, either. They each had their own spheres of influence, and thankfully, they didn't cross over.
But, secretly, Claire wanted them to cross. She wanted to hear how he was doing, to know whether he had made any progress on the investigations that had been in progress at the time of her abrupt departure.
She wanted to see him.
Yet Claire refused to act on these feelings. After all, she didn't quite know what she wanted – she was confused and unsure, and just because she didn't love Shane didn't mean that she loved Myrnin. Love for a man wasn't something that was essential – and so she wasn't ever going to make it.
(Despite this, he still haunted her dreams, and every lone, shadowed figure she saw she hoped was him…)
..
The divorce was finalised on a Thursday, with Claire getting the house and Shane the car. She had paid for it, after all, and he agreed that that was fair enough. He even let her have the cat, something which shocked her.
It seemed like, after the intervention, he had given up fighting for her, for them. He just didn't care any more, or maybe he never had, Claire couldn't tell.
Only after he left did the demons start haunting her during the day.
Well, demon. There was only one other man who seemed capable of hurting her now, just as he had done all those years ago, when he had given her over to Magnus as bait.
Now that she was on her own, he was always there, taunting her. She didn't know the absolute cutting edge of science, he told her; she wasn't included – because she wasn't good enough, because she didn't care about him enough to be interested in world-changing discoveries. She didn't get to be part of the biggest breakthrough in history because she refused to love him.
She drank to silence this voice. After all, she didn't need to love him: that he loved her was his problem, she absolutely categorically did not love him back, she was just confused.
(Now, the Myrnin that featured at the back of her mind was a Myrnin who had caused all her pain. This Myrnin was the reason she no longer had everything, or so she thought.)
..
Months passed, and Claire travelled the world. Part of her wanted someone to take pictures with at the leaning tower of Pisa or Stonehenge, but the rest of her was glad that she could be alone. She needed time to discover herself, after all.
Not that there wasn't others on her travels. Scientists she had gone to visit had invited her out for drinks, something she didn't feel guilty (really) about accepting, and more than one had ended up in her bed.
(She couldn't help herself thinking that none of them were as intelligent as him, and British men really didn't have the charm the internet afforded them.)
It was in England that she started to allow herself to think about him again—or, rather, her brain decided to associate everything with him and she couldn't stop. She wondered if he had walked down this very street (unlikely, given that he left England before tarmac was a thing), or if he had visited the same cultural landmarks she was at (more probable yet this was Myrnin, he didn't understand culture). He began to infiltrate her mind…and she hated it.
And then, in the blink of an eye, her research and networking trip was over, and she was on her way back to Morganville.
..
And now here she is, sitting with a half empty bottle of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other, trying to work out where it all went wrong, how she's ended up in this situation. She had picked up smoking when in London, when her brain decided to make her think that she was (is) in love with a man who could destroy her at any point, a man she hasn't had any contact with for almost a year.
She hates him, she really does, because his selfishness is what destroyed everything in the first place. If he hadn't insisted on declaring his love for her (because by that point, he loved all of her, not just her mind), she wouldn't have walked away. If she hadn't walked away, she would have been more distracted; she wouldn't have seen that her marriage was falling apart until it was too late.
She wouldn't have the guilt that it breaking up is all her fault.
(Deep down, she knows that's a load of bollocks; it takes two to break a marriage, but drunk Claire isn't exactly the most philosophical.)
And then she decides she can't handle it any more.
She throws the bottle of wine at the wall (she's rich and Amelie's favourite, she can pay to get it cleaned) with a resounding thunk, slowly getting to her feet. She's unsteady from the alcohol but her mind is resolved – she's going to see him.
It takes a few seconds for her to remember how to summon a portal, and for a brief second she's worried that he's calibrated her to be excluded from Morganville's most exclusive club – but then a door appears. It's the same door that's allowed her to travel everywhere for the last ten or more years: battered mahogany, with more dents than not and a large brass handle.
Before she loses her nerve, she turns the handle and is greeted with an almost familiar sight: the laboratory. It's different though; Myrnin has finally allowed there to be electricity within its walls, with proper LED lighting removing shadows from this world. Gone is the clutter on all of the desks, and there seems to be an actual labelling system on some of the test tubes.
Taking a deep breath, Claire swallows before taking the fateful step across from her house into the laboratory, pausing to breathe in the familiar smell. At least that hasn't changed, she thinks, walking towards where her desk used to be.
And then she stops dead.
Of all the changes in the laboratory, this is the one thing that has remained the same. Down to the pen she had thrown down in irritation, to the pile of blueprints for the Tower of London (to settle a bet which she had won)…it's all still here.
(Why is she even surprised?)
He's in front of her in a flash, his expression confused, just as it had been that day she had left. There's still a trace of hurt in his eyes, but that could be the alcohol making her see things – it's happened before.
"Claire," he says hesitantly, as though he doesn't know what to do. He sets a pile of paperwork down on the table beside them, before taking a step back. "I…I…" he trails off, evidently unsure what to say as well as do.
She takes a furious few breaths, swallowing before opening her mouth. Tears start to form in the corners of her eyes and she rubs them away: she doesn't want to cry, he doesn't deserve her tears.
"I wanted to say that…that I hate you, and that you are the cause of all of my problems," she starts in a rush, stumbling over some of the words. "I hate you. You tried to kill me ostentatiously as a teenager and when that failed, you decided to try and play the long game to destroy—"
He cuts her off at this point, irritation forming in the creases in his forehead and the marks around his eyes. She isn't sure if it's possible for vampires to look older, but at this point he looks as though he's aged thirty years since she last saw him.
"I don't know why you've come here, evidently, but if it's just to throw abuse, please leave." His tone is formal and curt, the antithesis of what it was mere seconds ago, and it's like a wake-up call to Claire.
More tears form, and once again, she wipes them away. "I'm…sorry. I think, anyway. I don't really blame you."
He raises an eyebrow, and only then does Claire realise what's happened, what's different about him. He's chopped his hair off, the hair that she always complimented, the one thing she said to his face that she wanted from him. "That's not what it sounds like."
"Look, I came here to say…I miss you more than anything. Things have changed in the past year, and I'm not saying…I'm not suggesting that I want…God no I'm not saying that…"
"You're not saying anything, Claire. Are you drunk?"
"No! Well…yes, I'm drunk but that doesn't change what I'm saying." She's insistent that he listens to her, but really, she knows that that isn't a problem. He's always going to listen to what she says, whether he wants to or not. "I miss you. I want to come back. Is that a problem?"
"What about Shane?" He has to know, he just has to, but he's still going to make her say it. He's doing it deliberately, Claire just knows it, she can feel it in her bones, in the way he's looking at her – angrily, but almost as though he's smirking with just the corner of his mouth.
"Shane hasn't been in the picture for months, Myrnin. Get a telephone and a newspaper delivery service and maybe you'll be able to keep up with this town's gossip."
He smiles at this point and takes a step forwards before stopping, swaying on his feet. He was going to continue onwards, she can tell just by knowing him, but he managed to stop himself – which is good. Last year, he would have swept her up in a hug without thinking about what she wants.
(Annoyingly though, she wanted him to.)
"In that case, I very much look forward to hearing about your developments with the global homogenising cellular gun; shall we say tomorrow at noon?"
Claire finds herself unable to speak for a lump in her throat, one that she must keep down at any costs: she won't cry, she won't make him think that this is redefining her future.
(It is…but she doesn't want anyone to know that, not even herself.)
"Yeah…sounds good. See you then," she manages to mumble before turning back towards the portal.
Just before she closes the door in her house, she hears his voice, the one she remembers – the one full of warmth and happiness, full of pride and tinged with regret.
"I've missed you more than anything, Claire. I'm so glad you're back."
"Me too."