Note: Written for the We're in this Together challenge at the yuridrabbles livejournal community.
Pairings: ClaudinexMaura
Warning: Spoilers for about halfway through Claudine.
Disclaimer: Claudine is copyright Ikeda Riyoko and Shuueisha. I am using the characters for non-profit entertainment purposes only.They should have been in this together, but Claudine hasn't seen Maura since that horrible moment when her mother walked in on them. Hasn't been allowed to see her, no matter how much she's begged and pleaded. Maura will be shipped away in no time at all, she knows, and they'll likely never set eyes on one another ever again.
Having barely tasted the joy of first love, Claudine has now plunged headlong into the agony of first heartbreak. And accompanying her sorrow is the guilt of knowing that she has well and truly ruined another person's life; The lives of a whole family, to be more precise. With Maura's father dead and Maura without a job, how will her family be able to make ends meet? It is a sorry existence that awaits Maura upon her return home, and she has Claudine to blame for it.
Claudine has read stories of forbidden love, of clandestine affairs and outright, bold defiance, but the bitter sting of reality is so very different. There is no desperate romanticism in this; Only bone-deep sorrow, crushing guilt, and anger that burns fire-bright for the society that has condemned them. How dare her father allow them to be punished for their association, when he himself dallies with a youth, a mere boy not even half his age?
Even if he could not support her outright, she expected him to do something, anything, to ameliorate the situation. But he sided with Claudine's mother, not yielding to any of Claudine's protests or entreaties.
Despite her anger, she cannot quite bring herself to confront him about it; There are some things that are not spoken of. Some things that are best not thought about at all. Swept under the rug for the sanity of all involved; Out of sight, out of mind.
She knows that if his affair were ever to come to light, she would remain by his side through it all, as always. Even this betrayal, and her anger at his hypocrisy, cannot truly turn her against him. They are two of a kind, Claudine and Auguste. It is not a truth that can be altered by his denial, and Claudine knows in her heart that someday he will come to fully understand and support her. Someday.
Until then, she will brood, and scream, and shout; She will try to focus on the anger rather than the guilt and the pain. She will try not to think about Maura, who must be locked in her room awaiting the next train out of the village. She will not wonder if they are feeding Maura, if she is being shunned or insulted or abused.
They should have been in this together, but they are not, and the only path to sanity lies in carefully not thinking about how Maura is right now, what's happening to her, what will become of her after she leaves. It is difficult, but Claudine will manage it somehow. She must.