A/N: This one may be a little shorter than the last one. I'm not sure. I've been working on a lot of Librarians fics lately for Librarians Fic Week next week and almost didn't get this chapter finished in time to post! But luckily I found time to finish it for you guys! I hope you like it!

Happy reading!

angellwings

PART TWO: Mosaic Broken Hearts

by angellwings

Chapter Five: Trouble

The rest of the day had been amazingly uneventful and Claire and himself had relaxed into it. After lunch they went and enjoyed the beach for the afternoon. He was right. Claire knew how to wear a swimsuit very well. She'd bought a simple black bikini and she looked damn good in it. They'd wasted the afternoon soaking in the sun and splashing around in the water. She'd even convinced him to build a sand castle with her. He hadn't done that since he was a kid. It was an afternoon that felt oddly normal and that was full of laughter. It was a welcome change for both of them.

They came back to the room covered in sand and both took showers before changing clothes for dinner. He planned to take her out for a nice dinner. She broke out one of her new cocktail dresses that Tara had helped her pick out and completely floored him. It was red, short, and strapless. All things that were very appealing on her. As a result they left for dinner a little later than he'd initially planned. But the delay was well worth it if he did say so himself.

Dinner had been delicious and Eliot was very impressed with the local restaurants and the quality of their food. He'd caught Claire smiling fondly at him more than once as he gushed about certain items on both of their plates. Now, they were at a local bar for after dinner drinks. They were sitting at a small elevated table near the actual bar. Eliot had a beer. It was a local brew that he'd never had before and Claire had a cocktail of some kind that he didn't recognize.

It was really unnerving how absolutely ordinary all of this felt. The calm left him paranoid because his life wasn't ordinary and too much calm usually meant trouble was on the horizon. And if the way Claire was nervously wringing her hands was any indication she was thinking the exact same thing.

"This is weird," Eliot finally said. "Nice, but weird."

"You mean the fact that we've had nearly three days without anyone trying to kill either of us?" She asked him with a smirk.

"Yes, that is exactly what I mean," he said with a chuckle.

"It's very weird," she agreed. "I sort of feel like I'm living someone else's life right now, honestly. Or…"

"Or what?" He asked when she stopped abruptly.

"Or that this is what my life could have been like if I'd never become a grifter," she said honestly as she leaned into him a bit more. His arm was around the back of her chair and the hand that rested by her shoulder gently caressed the side of it as she spoke.

"If you'd never been a grifter we wouldn't have met, sweetheart," he said as he leaned toward her ear to whisper.

She blushed and turned to smile softly at him. She brought a hand up to his face and traced a thumb over his cheek. "Well, we can't have that, can we?"

He shook his head and then turned to place a quick kiss on the palm of the hand that had caressed his face so lovingly. Then he met her blue eyes with his own and answered her, "No we can't."

There was movement over by the bar and Claire's eyes drifted from his. "Isn't that Felicia from front desk?" She asked as she motioned to the bar with a nod of her head. He followed her gaze to see Felicia with a young man leaning into her personal space. Felicia did not appear to be enjoying his attention but that didn't stop the man from leering at her. The man's hand moved over Felicia's drink to pay the bartender and he felt Claire tense next to him. She'd noticed something that he'd missed. Felicia then grabbed her drink and moved to the far corner of the bar but the young man's eyes never left her. Claire cursed and then turned back to Eliot.

"I'll be right back," she said with a sigh. "Watch my drink."

She left the table before he could ask her what she was up to. He watched as she approached Felicia and started a friendly conversation after a second or two Claire tripped over her own feet and appeared to accidentally knock the drink out of Felicia's hand. The contents of the drink spilled completely onto the bar and Claire apologized and ordered Felicia a replacement drink. He noticed Claire made sure to accept the drink directly from the bar tender before handing it to Felicia. Felicia nodded her thanks and then moved away from the bar completely.

Eliot assumed that would be the end of it but Claire didn't come back. No, instead she moved to the stool that Felicia had occupied and ordered herself a drink. The young man did the same thing to Claire. He leaned way in to talk to her and he even touched her shoulder once or twice. Eliot's hands clenched into fists but he stayed put. He didn't know what she was up to and he didn't want to blow it for her. She shot the young man down as the bar tender brought Claire's drink and another beer for the man next to her. He pulled the same move and started to reach over Claire's drink to accept a napkin from the bar tender.

But Claire's hand shot out and caught the man's wrist before he could. She focused a glare on him and then tapped the man's closed fist with her other hand. He couldn't hear what she was saying to him but the man eventually opened his hand to reveal a small pill. Eliot tensed even more. That's what she'd seen that he hadn't. The jackass had attempted to drug Felicia. Claire looked at the bar tender who had been watching the two of them closely and said something else. As the bar tender reached for the phone the man broke his wrist out of Claire's grasp and ran. Claire looked over at Eliot and gave him a small apologetic smile.

He sighed in resignation and reached the door just ahead of the man from the bar and quickly held out his arm to stop him. The man's chest and shoulders hit Eliot's arm at a high speed. He crumpled to the ground with a whimper as Eliot clotheslined him. Eliot yanked the man up by the collar of his shirt and pulled him back over to the bar. He tried to run again but Eliot rolled his eyes and shoved him back down on the bar stool.

"Sit your ass down and don't move," Eliot said with a growl.

"You can't hold me here," the man yelled angrily.

"The hell we can't," Claire said with a livid glare of her own as she came to stand beside of Eliot. "You're going to stay right where you are until the authorities get here and then you can explain to them why you tried to drug not one but two women in this bar tonight. How's that sound?"

"Sounds like you're a bitch," the man muttered. "That's what it sounds like."

Claire laughed but kept a cool gaze on the lowlife in front of her. "You better believe it. I've got a right to be a bitch to any man who tries to drug me."

The man opened his mouth to speak again but Eliot quirked a brow at him and tightened his grip on the man's shirt collar. The man promptly shut his mouth.

"Yeah, shutting up is the best option you have right now. Unless you want to find out what would happen to you if you talk to her like that one more time," Eliot said threateningly.

They only had to wait a few more minutes for the cops to arrive. They took the man into custody, Claire gave a quick statement to the police, and then Claire and Eliot decided to leave the bar. Everyone was aware of their presence now and kept staring. Having a room full of people watching you shamelessly was unnerving. Once they were out on the sidewalk, Claire slipped her arm through Eliot's.

"Sorry about that," she said with a sigh. "Once I saw what he was doing I couldn't just let him get away with it."

"No need to apologize. I would've done the same thing. 'Course, my way would have been a lot louder and involved a lot more screaming but your way worked too," Eliot said as he leaned toward her and kissed her cheek. "How did you spot that, by the way? I've got good eyes and even I missed that the first time around."

"I've seen it enough to recognize it," she said in a regretful tone. "The men in Moreau's crew were not nice men. They were more the 'take what I can and give nothing back' kind. Chapman and Moreau let them get away with a lot more after you left. I couldn't do anything about it without blowing my cover so I had to watch it happen and keep my mouth shut. But I didn't have to keep my mouth shut tonight. No way was I going to watch that play out again."

He could feel the guilt and the shame rolling off of her. They probably added to the victims she undoubtedly saw in her nightmares, he thought. Often times, it the things you don't speak up about that weigh you down the most. She was an accomplice by association. She stopped walking and when he turned to look at her he found her sitting on a public bench with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. Her shoulders were shaking slightly as he settled down next to her and pulled her into his arms.

She let out a bitter soggy chuckle before she spoke again and hesitantly looked up at him. "Wow, I am a monster. I just let that happen under my nose for my own selfish survival. I should've stopped them and damned the consequences. Those women were all hurt because I did nothing to stop it. I—oh god. Nothing I do is ever going to make that right. Nothing."

He gave her an understanding look and then gently brushed her hair out of her face. "I hate to be the one to remind you of this, darlin'," he said softly as he made sure to keep her eyes focused on his. "But you're a victim, too. I know you don't like to think of it that way and I don't much blame you, but you are." She attempted to pull away from him but he refused to let her. She needed to hear this. She needed someone to say it and it was going to have to be him. "You were hurt too. And I can see just how deep that hurt goes. You had no good options. You did the best with what you had. That's all anyone can ask of you. You're a damn strong woman, Claire, but there are some things that you can't fix and some people that you can't save. The people who hurt those girls, they're the ones responsible. Don't put the blame entirely on your shoulders. It'll crush you if you let it." He pressed his forehead to hers and watched her close her eyes. Tear tracks were already covering her cheeks and she wrapped her arms around him even tighter. "You deserve as much concern as anyone else he hurt, sweetheart. You really do."

He pulled her up from the bench and held her tight against his side as they walked back to where he'd parked the car. She cried the whole drive back to the bed and breakfast but she wasn't shaking with sobs and she was able to breathe. That was a step forward. He had a feeling tonight would be a bad night for her though. He'd never wished he could take on someone else's pain more than he did at this very moment. He would gladly take all of this on for her if he could.

But healing didn't work that way. They only thing he could do is be there to offer her support when she needed it. No matter how much it killed him to watch her suffer.

When they made it back to the room she didn't bother to change clothes. She simply pulled her heels off and then collapsed into the bed with her face in the pillows. He followed her lead and pulled her out of the pillows to rest against his chest. His instinct about her having a rough night had been completely accurate. She'd tossed and turned and whimpered and woke up gasping for air more than once. She'd finally fallen in a deep sleep at about four in the morning. The minute her breathing deepened and her muscles relaxed against him was the minute he was finally able to get some sleep himself.

They both slept a very long time. Longer than his body typically allowed him to sleep. There were lots of reasons he only slept for an hour and a half. Most of them had to do with his own nightmares, but he also felt the need to keep an eye out for any enemies. Sleeping left you vulnerable and even though most nights it was unlikely he would be discovered he refused to take the chance. Yet, here lately, while sharing a bed with Claire he'd been sleeping much longer than he was accustomed. He hadn't decided whether that was healthy for him or a weakness that could be exploited. He, of course, woke up before her and discovered he'd been asleep five hours. That was the longest night of sleep he'd gotten in years. At first he was convinced the alarm clock on the bedside table was wrong. It had to be. And then he'd found his watch next to it and confirmed that the time was correct. It was 9 AM. He still had Claire cradled against his chest and his arm that she had her weight leaning against was numb and tingly. He sighed and kissed the top of her head. If he were honest he really didn't want to get up just yet. He liked lying next to Claire in the quiet. It felt comfortable and normal. He hadn't had much of either in a very longer time. Longer than he cared to admit. He reluctantly slid out of bed and decided to go for a run on the beach. He felt as if he'd been lazy too long and he needed to do something

The run left him plenty of time to think about Claire. He still wasn't sure what he ultimately wanted out of this. She was leaving when the two weeks were over. Did that mean that whatever this was between them would be over? And what exactly was this? He'd never been one to label relationships, especially after Aimee, and he wasn't sure what he and Claire had really needed a label to begin with. Nothing in either of their lives had ever fit in a label. Why would that change now? But he did know one thing that he felt he should tell her. One thing that he'd avoided telling her for the two years they'd both been with Moreau because he was afraid of how vulnerable it would make him. Something she'd never admitted to him either. In a way, he knew she felt it. He could see it sometimes in the way she looked at him. But, again, this seemed to fall under that same 'don't ask, don't tell' policy they'd stumbled into. Before the two weeks were over he wanted to be able to say he'd been honest with her about his feelings, at least. He doubted it would change her plans, but at least she'd know. She'd know that whatever else happened there would always be someone out there who loved her. With everything she'd been through she deserved that.

Now he just had to get up the nerve to say it.