Changing with the Seasons
Summary: Claudia recognizes the changes from who she was to who she is becoming. Not all of it's nice, but it is her destiny. Spoilers including and up to The Truth Hurts.
There used to be a time when she knew things about herself, knew these little things she was sure would always hold to be true. She can't remember when, exactly, but once upon a time she was sure of a few unwavering details of her life. For instance, two things she could always count on: that she loved her brother more than anyone in the world, and that she would never dream of killing another person.
She can remember quite distinctly when Joshua was the only family she'd fight to rescue, the only family she'd die to save, her only family, period.
But things are different now.
She loves her brother still, of course, but he's no longer the center of her universe. In fact, sometimes he feels farther away now than when he was in the interdimensional rift. Joshua didn't choose this Warehouse life with her, and that has somehow made a difference. She'll see him at Christmas, but she spends the best and worst moments of her life with Pete, with Myka, with Artie, and Steve. Steve, the brother she never looked for, the best friend who she brought back from death itself. Where once she only yearned for Joshua's safety, she now has a whole family to look to for comfort, to protect, to potentially lose. They've lost Leena already, and their safety is constantly in jeopardy. Joshua has only a vague idea of what she faces every day. Does he know, she sometimes wonders, that it's all bonded her to the Warehouse with such a totality she doesn't think she could leave if she wanted to?
He's blood and he's family, but he's not the family that fretted and tried and saved her from becoming crumbling bronze. He doesn't check in on her nearly as often as he should, just a Skype session or phone call every couple of months, little breaks from his busy, busy life.
She doesn't blame him in the slightest, that's just not the relationship they have, not anymore. It's just a little sad.
Sometimes at night it all hits her, and the heavy thoughts press her head deep into the pillow, but sleep still manages to evade her. Occasionally she wonders if she's truly becoming an insomniac, because these sleep patterns can't be considered normal, can't be considered healthy. And she knows why, doesn't need a shrink like Abigail to explain this one. Mostly, she just doesn't want to dream of airplane hangars and what Leena's face must have been like after Artie turned on her, doesn't want to relive stabbing Artie in the chest, doesn't want to see Marcus hovering over her, eyes lifeless and empty.
And some days she forgets who she is and who she's not; some days she still believes she's too innocent to take a life, but then Marcus will haunt her nightmares (and still, she can't bring herself to regret the act). When it does weigh on her, she'll make excuses in her head. He wasn't really alive, the metronome connection made it not murder. The argument doesn't hold – because Steve came back and when he was tied to the metronome, she would have kept him on it forever just to keep him safe, breathing, and in her life. She is many things, but she is no hypocrite. If Steve was alive at that time of connection, so was Marcus, and she killed him.
They never talk about that, none of them. It's hers alone, a part of who she is now. She doesn't know how she fell so far from her ideals, and the only explanation that she keeps coming back to is that things are changing so much, so quickly. She is changing so much, so quickly.
She gained new truths over the years but as she's recently come to learn, they're never stable. Because she once believed Artie would never lie to her, except perhaps under artifact influence, and that assurance is gone now too. He's been lying since she was that little girl he abandoned and it stings because some things should be sacred. Some truths should be untouchable.
Her sister is alive, not dead. You'd think that would be one of those things, but as she learns year after year, day after day, nothing here has any degree of permanence. It should, she thinks. It really should.
And she wasn't supposed to be ready to become Caretaker. She hadn't felt ready just that morning, or even just a few minutes before she had to be ready. And saving Mrs. Frederic's life is less about heroics than it is about instinct and resignation. These are the things she must do (and he promised she'd have a choice once upon the time, he just never mentioned it wouldn't feel like a choice at all.)
And it isn't until she feels the power of the Warehouse that all of these old guilts and grudges and pasts seem to fade into nothing at all. Because she's staring back at her family and knowing in her gut that she needs to stay and fight this war, knows it's hers alone. They don't want to leave her. It's too dangerous, Artie says. I can't leave you, Steve says. There's a new authority to her now though, and they must let her take hold of it.
She knows that once this over, she'll still be mad at Artie, but right now that doesn't matter. Because he lied to protect her, lied with good intentions, and most of all, because he loves her. And she loves him. She loves them all.
It's this that gives her courage, not the power she feels raging in the air around her.
Her family loves her and they, more than anything in this world, are worth the fight.
Perhaps there are still a few things she can count on after all.
Paracelsus turns to face her, and she smiles.