Summary: While Barry's does what he feels is just for what he did, Claire continues to kick herself.
Rating: T
Regret
Chapter Three: The Least
By: Mazzie May
Claire stared out the car window at the barren and bleak Arizona desert as Chris took another turn a bit quick. The desert was so empty and cracked and seemed so tired. Just like me. She sighed outwardly and inwardly told herself to shut up. She'd just had a bad daydream about Antarctica on the drive home from the store and was all cranky now.
She'd dreamed of Steve's death yet again. It was still with her. It was funny, how she could think of Irons' death, when his body was cracked in half and a huge, mucus covered slug rolled out of his chest, made a sick slap! as it hit the cement floor and scuttled away, making a trail of blood and slime and some bubbly ooze follow it down the hatch and not feel sick anymore.
She could think of the Tyrant and Mr. X and say "Glad that's over". She could have nightmares of them, but still wake up, knowing that she'd gotten away from them, that their deaths were okay, that Irons, the Tyrants and Alfred and Alexia Ashford had it coming. That they died wasn't wrong.
But Steve… That had been horrible. He'd nearly died three times before and Claire was convinced that if after that "tussle" with that four-armed thing on the roof of the Antarctica base he was still alive, nothing was going to kill him. He had the devil's luck.
But Alexia had changed that. She'd injected him and turned him into some sort of axe wielding monster. And when the knock from one of Alexia's tentacles put his genes back in place and he changed back, Claire honestly thought he was going to make it again. He might've been pale, and maybe a few cracked ribs but on the grand scale of things that was nothing.
But he'd rasped the words "I love you" and completely collapsed. She cried for him then because it wasn't fair that he died. Now, she cried for him because it wasn't fair that she didn't love him back. Rationale was on her side; they'd only known each other maybe two days, and in all of that she'd only spent about seventeen hours with him. Why would she have come to love him? She couldn't. But Steve did. And that made her feel like shit.
Steve had nothing to do with Umbrella; he didn't deserve what happened. Hardly anyone did, though she could think of a few. What Claire hated the most was herself; after everything happened, all he did for her, the least she could've done was lie to him before he died and said she felt the same.
All she did was stare.
Author's Note: I think I might do a "Through Claire's eyes" of Steve's death one shot… Dunno, though. What'd you think?
R&R Please