Claire woke up the next morning with her legs and feet aching so much she could hardly move. The young woman had never felt so sore after a dance, but then again, she had never really actively participated in one before. She struggled to get up and dress herself, her calf muscles burning as she pulled on her socks. The farmer opened up her curtains and looked out at her fields. She had been overzealous in planting corn and tomatoes, and watering them had become her main job. After experiencing heat exhaustion earlier in the season, she knew that if the plants were going to get watered, they would need to be done right away before the temperatures rose. She was about to settle into a rushed breakfast of fresh tomatoes from her rejected and blemished pile when she heard a knock on the door.

She knew it wasn't Karen, as the brunette would've shouted out a greeting by now. Claire let out a soft moan of pain as she pulled herself up from her seated position at the table and hobbled to the door.

Her heart pounded at the sight of the apprentice blacksmith. If he was here on business, it was a surprise to her; she hadn't ordered anything lately that he would be delivering, and she wasn't expecting him today.

"Hey," he said the greeting as if it were perfectly natural that he would show up on her doorstep at six in the morning.

"Uh… hi!" the farmer stammered as she opened her door and let the young man inside. She led the way to her table, eager to offer him some breakfast, but he milled about nervously in the doorway.

"Ah, you still have that horse book, huh?" he laughed nervously as he glanced at the library book on Claire's table. "I can return it to the library for you today if you want," the young man kindly offered.

The blonde shook her head. "I wanted to visit with Mary today anyway. Let her know I'll be coming over later," she grinned. Claire had been thinking about it a lot this morning, and the librarian's cheery and friendly demeanor last evening intrigued her.

He let out a grunt of acknowledgement and wiped his sweaty hands off on his coveralls. Gray tugged on the bill of his cap and let out a soft sigh. He knew from the day they first met that this day would come. "Claire, we need to talk." His mouth was dry, but asking for a glass of water would only complicate things. She'd be so damned friendly about it and then the words he needed to say would become impossible to get out.

The blonde's face caught on fire as she struggled to steady her breathing. "Uh, sure. Wh-what about?""

The apprentice's cheeks turned a bright shade of red. How did one begin a conversation like this? With the truth, he figured. "W-Well… us, I suppose…"

The farmer nearly flopped over and gripped the edge of the table; she felt faint. Was the young man implying what she thought and prayed he was?

The young man folded his arms across his chest. "D-Dammit! Wh-Why can't I ever say anything right?" he let out a groan in aggravation. Gray shot her an apologetic look and nervously rubbed the back of his neck, turning his head to face her. "I mean, I guess it's about us, but… well… why don't I start from the beginning?

"Uh, okay…" the young woman shifted uncomfortably on her floor cushion and the young man paced in front of the table, jamming his hands in his pockets. "Please, have a seat," she offered. His agitated pacing back and forth was making her terribly nervous.

He looked at her with an expression that suggested she was asking him to do something painful. "'Kay," he grunted, tugging on the bill of his cap. "Listen, Claire… I…" he stammered as the blood drained from his face, realizing he hadn't really rehearsed what he was going to say in his mind.

The blonde could hardly hear him over the pounding in her ears. He what? He loves me? He wants to be with me? He can't stand me? He regrets not bringing me to the dance? Her mind swam with possible options.

He couldn't stand stalling anymore – he dove right in. "I'm… not the type of person that attracts people. I'm aware of that…" his voice was husky as he removed his cap and set it on the table. "So… in that respect, I am grateful that you've been so kind to me."

It became difficult for Claire to breathe and she could feel a warm sweat forming on her brow. She wished he would just spit it out already… that he was madly in love with her and couldn't stand it anymore…

"But…" his pale blue eyes moved to the floor, abashed.

How silly it was that the simple utterance of this one little word flipped the young woman's mood. Her blood ran cold and she found that she was trembling.

He let out a soft sigh; it was less painful to just peel off a bandage than tug at it gently. "This – you and me – well, it isn't going anywhere. You have got to stop making yourself miserable." He lacked the courage to look her in the eye as his gaze uncomfortably moved to the floor.

She blinked, the words not truly registering. "Oh." She had no way to cope with this, so her brain refused to accept it. The young woman felt as if she were watching the conversation happen from outside of her own body. She couldn't even find the proper motivation to be frustrated at her lack of emotion.

Gray continued, his voice growing a little stronger. After all, he still had more to say. "I realize I may have been a little… misleading… I apologize."

Claire sat in numbed silence. He didn't want her. What about all of the time they spent together? All of the pieces of copper she had given him? What about him training Tucker? Or that time he took her out to the inn for lunch? Surely that had to have meant something… but what it exactly meant, she was no longer sure. Nothing made sense anymore.

He looked at the blonde uncomfortably. She was hanging her head, obviously deep in thought. Her bangs hung in her eyes, so it was difficult to read her expression, but he could tell from her body language that it was not a happy one. He wanted to say more, but he stopped himself. "I'm… sorry, okay?" Gray returned his hat to his head and stood up.

He had never wanted her to begin with. She had offered him her heart, and he had no desire for it. Her pulse began to throb in her ears as she felt her entire body get hot and cold at the same time. "Okay…" she wasn't sure what was expected of her to say in such circumstances, so she fed him the only line she could muster. Claire stared at the table's surface miserably, blinking away the tears that started to form. She heard his boots shuffle across the floor toward the door and the young woman felt a spring of anger well up within her. "No… it's not okay," she stood up, her voice tremulous as she realized how truly wrong the whole situation had been.

Gray froze in his tracks, numb. He really didn't know how Claire was going to take his words, and he hadn't given much thought on how to respond to her. He just knew he needed to get it off of his chest today.

"I liked you from the first day I moved into town. You can't tell me that you weren't aware of that," her words were bitter as she stood up from her seat, ignoring the searing pain in her thigh muscles from the night before.

He opened his mouth to speak, but the words wouldn't come out. Her blue eyes looked aggressive and his first instinct was to protect himself. "I-I didn't think it was anything too serious…"

She glared at him in response. How dare he cheapen her feelings toward him! She was so furious she was twitching.

Everyone had heard the story of the farmer with the short temper who beat up Mayor Thomas on her first day in town, but he wasn't about to be intimidated by her anger and he gave her a scowl in reply. "I tried to show you I wasn't interested - I didn't want to be rude and say it outright. How could you not take the hint?" he bit his lip in frustration; the young woman had been selectively interpreting his actions and words to fit what she wanted them to.

The young woman gnashed her teeth, but her rage faded a bit as she remembered the priest's story about the child and the alarm clock. Gray's avoidance of the uncomfortable words had made the situation worse for the both of them. At the same time, she had to admit that there were a lot of times she pushed the doubts out of her mind out of sheer stubbornness. The most obvious of those instances had happened just the night before when she noticed his uncomfortable demeanor while they danced together. However, she refused to see that she had any blame in this – he should have told her outright that he did not want to be with her. Her anger turned to sadness as she pitied herself. "You always thanked me for the ore I brought you…" she lamented, her eyes welling up with tears. She wanted him to know that he had led her on and it had hurt.

"I appreciated the gifts, but that didn't mean that I wanted to be your boyfriend." It was kind of true, anyway… even if all he did was throw the small pieces of ore into the furnace when he came into work.

Claire refused to believe that he had never felt anything for her at all. "You always blush when you're around me!" Her voice rose in volume and she forgot her manners; they hardly mattered at a time like this.

He turned red once again. "W-Well… that's because…" his voice trailed off as his eyes moved to the floor and he clenched his jaw. She was not making it easy for him to remain tactful, but perhaps that opportunity had passed long ago while he was not paying attention. "You're always embarrassing me! How would you feel if someone you didn't even know that well stared at you like… you were their… lover or something?"

Her heart sank as a gasp of indignation escaped her body. A well of rage bubbled up within the young woman and before she knew it, she was raising a trembling hand, winding up to slap him across the face with all of her might. Her eyes met his pale blue ones and she dropped her arm, her lungs deflating. Stinging tears streamed down her cheeks and she impatiently wiped them away, but her emotions were too much.

"Go on, I deserve it…" he humbly removed his hat so she wouldn't injure her hand.

She buried her face in her hands as she cried freely. She found herself unable to strike him, as much as she wanted to. Claire was frustrated – why was she always hesitating with him? She found that she would much rather simply hear the truth. "No…I don't…I just…why? Why didn't you spell it out for me? Couldn't you just say you weren't interested to begin with?"

She was too busy wallowing in her own pain to see the anguish reflected in his pale blue eyes. The young man swallowed the lump in his throat. He would have much rather she just slapped him; it would have been much easier on him. "Because… I didn't want to see you look the way you do right now…" his voice trailed off. He nervously rubbed the back of his head. She wasn't aware, but his heart was breaking as well, in a way. "Despite what you think, I do care about you Claire…"

Those words hurt more than his initial confession that he didn't love her. "Stop." She attempted to blink away the tears that were blurring her vision and she clenched her fists in frustration when they tumbled down her cheeks. "No girl ever wants to hear that."

"But I don't dislike you," he insisted. The young man wanted to make his point clear that he may not be romantically interested in her, but he didn't think she was a bad person.

"I said 'stop'!" her voice quavered. The more he said he did care in some way, the more it made her heart ache. She would prefer it if he completely hated her. She started to raise her open palm again to him, but swiftly wrung her hands instead.

He was still holding his hat. "Please, go ahead. Honestly, it would make me feel better." He stared forward, bracing for impact. A red welt on his cheek was nothing compared to what he was going through emotionally.

"If we're being honest here, I don't care about making you feel better," she replied bitterly. She may have slapped him if she was the same person she was when she moved to Mineral Town, but this wasn't the case. She had grown since then. "I know I'm being selfish," her voice quavered, "but I want you to understand how it feels to hurt, too." Claire's voice trailed off as she sat down miserably at her table and buried her face in her arms, her blonde locks spilling onto the furniture's surface.

Gray fussed with the baseball cap in his hands. He was unsure if she wanted him to sit down beside him or not. He ran his fingers through his messy locks and sat cross-legged on a floor cushion across from her.

She heard him take a seat. "Gray…?"

"Yeah?" his heart was in his throat as he swallowed.

"Please leave," her voice broke. "I want to be alone. This may take me a while to recover from, okay?" her words were muffled, but she didn't look up; it was apparent from her tone and body language that she was silently crying.

He nodded even though he was well aware that she was unable to see him. "Okay." His voice was gentle. He almost added an "I understand", but that would be a lie. He didn't know what she was feeling and it was unfair of him to pretend to, he realized.

0o0o0o0

How would you feel if someone you didn't even know that well stared at you like you were their lover or something?

She sat at the edge of the stream on the side of her farm, her pant legs rolled up and her feet dangling in the water. Claire looked down at herself in the reflective surface as a couple of tears fell from her eyes, causing ripples to spread across the water. She stared in disgust at her wobbly image in the stream.

Someone you don't even know that well…

Those words had hurt the most. She had thought that he had seen her as a friend, at the very least. She swallowed the lump in her throat as she impatiently wiped away her tears, well aware that her face was becoming raw.

What did Gray know about her, really?

He knew she was a farmer that came from a family of five children. He knew that she came from the city and that she lacked experience with what she was doing. Claire frowned as she struggled to think of more things. Books! He knew she liked fantasy novels and didn't care for overly cheesy romance. The young woman's face fell. Was that really all she had to show for over four months' worth of pursuit?

She let out a wistful sigh. It was now painfully obvious that he had never had romantic thoughts about her. Who did she think she had been kidding, anyway?

The only one she had been fooling was herself, she realized as she wept afresh.

0o0o0o0

Author's Note: Yeesh, this chapter was hard to write, even though I knew this event was going to happen the moment I started this story. I hope I was able to convey their emotions realistically. Feel free to leave me a message or review.