CHAPTER 5
Claire:
Her hands shook as Claire took a deep breath and grabbed onto the strap of her purse tightly while setting her free hand on the handle of her carry-on suitcase that was parked next to her in the entry way.
"Are you sure you're okay with this?" Claire verified nervously as she peaked through the front window again to see if Quil's car had pulled up yet. She was trying to intercept him before he could make it into the house.
"Yes, I'm sure, Claire." Bennett laughed, reassuring her for the hundredth time as he helped Jamie get his backpack on.
"But the whole weekend? There's a real possibility that Rach and Trav won't be able to take him before I get home. And you'll be running the pack until we all get back." Claire argued worriedly as she turned to look back at the two of them ready to leave together to stay at Bennett's house to avoid any awkwardness if on the off chance her mom showed up while Claire was gone.
Bennett snorted in response as he started guiding Jamie toward Claire by the door.
"'Running' the pack means that for like forty-eight hours Ty answers to me while we run normal patrols….. not exactly the next alpha in line. And yes, Claire, for the millionth time, Jamie can stay the entire weekend if he needs to. My whole family is super excited to have him. My mom and grandparents will be there at night, and I have nothing but my shifts planned all weekend, it'll be fine."
Claire blew out a breath of relief at his reassurance. He was right, it would be fine. It was just the first time since her father's death that Claire had left Jamie for more than a few hours and she was having serious nerves about it. It had only been a week and a half since Jamie had been kicked out of daycare for punching another child, and even though he'd had no problems since and had sworn it'd never happen again, Claire still stressed about leaving to go somewhere he'd be out of her reach.
Rachel had planned to be the one to stay with Jamie when Claire had booked the ticket to Vegas for Sophia and Brady's combined bachelor and bachelorette weekend but that had been before they'd found out she was pregnant. Rachel had still been planning on watching him and now had Travis to help her, but they weren't back from their quick honeymoon to Seattle yet and Rachel was still barely getting a handle on her morning sickness. Claire had hesitated to ask Bennett to watch Jamie when he was one of only two wolves who were still going to be left in town this weekend, but he'd been the one to offer before Claire could even think about potentially just backing out by playing the 'my dad just died' card to escape the guilt trips Leah and Sofia would surely throw her way.
"Are you sure you don't want me to take you to the airport?" Bennett asked again in a lower voice trying not to attract Jamie's attention.
Claire bit her lip in obvious indecision as she looked up at Bennett more for direction than anything else.
"What would we even tell him? It's a two-hour drive and he has to go too. What's he going to think except that I'm obviously avoiding him?" she argued more with herself than him since she really did want him to drive her but couldn't justify it.
"Who give's a fu-"
Bennett cut off when Claire hit him hard across the chest with a chastising "Bennett!"
They both immediately turned to look at Jamie standing next to them clearly watching and listening to every word.
"-Shit." Bennett muttered quietly to himself and Claire smacked him again without ever taking her eyes off Jamie. "Sorry!" he said loudly.
Jamie just shrugged like he didn't care when in reality Claire was pretty sure he just didn't know what was going on.
"James, go upstairs and make sure you didn't forget anything, alright?" she said easily like nothing unusual was going on.
"I already did." He complained as he bounced on his feet. "Are we going to see Butch this weekend?"
"No, hun. We had Butch last weekend, remember? And I know you did but please just go check one more time, don't forget to look under your bed!" Claire said quickly, trying to garner some enthusiasm from him as she gently shoved him toward the stairs.
He huffed one more time before marching up the stairs and Claire turned back to Bennett who started talking again like they were in the middle of the conversation and hadn't ever paused.
"Look, I don't care what he thinks. You don't need to be stuck in a car alone for two hours with him. You'll be stuck with him all weekend, you don't need to drive with him too."
"Uhh…" Claire groaned undecided because she couldn't argue his points and she didn't even really want to.
She was still completely undecided when she saw the flash of black and realized the Camaro had just pulled into the driveway.
"Shit. He's here!" Claire said in a panic as she looked from the window back to Bennett next to her looking annoyed.
"Oh, so I can't curse, but it's fine for you to?"
"Okay, it's too late, I just have to go! Stay here with Jamie until we leave, okay?" she replied, completely ignoring his comment.
"Claire. This is beyond ridiculous! I'm tired of his dick moves here, I'm not going to hide from him like some little pansy. In fact, I'm taking you to the airport, he can caravan if he wants to but he's not taking you!" Bennett ranted, clearly getting more and more worked up until he was actually moving toward the front door, reaching for the handle as he finished speaking.
Claire had to grab hard at the shirt on his chest and step in front of him though he didn't really seem to notice since he was so much stronger than she was, until she put her feet to the door and shoved as hard as she could against him.
"No! Bennett, stop!" she huffed, out of breath as she stretched and used all her strength to try to force him away from the door again.
"This is bullshit, Claire, and I'm tired of it. If he wants to relinquish his claim on you then fine but he needs to commit to that and not have one foot in and one out. He can't be in your life and not with you too." Bennett said forcefully enough that Claire was positive he was saying it for Quil to hear too.
"Bennett!" she hissed just as forcefully, demanding his attention until he stopped barely fighting her as he held his ground and continued to the door, and looked down at her. "Who are you?" she finally asked in a much softer voice.
"What?" he asked, completely derailed and obviously confused.
Claire started shaking her head in slight frustration since she really didn't have time for this. "No, I mean like, who are you to me?"
"What?" he asked again, this time with some slightly clipped annoyance, he was clearly ready for a fight and rearing to go, he just needed to be unleashed out the front door she was standing in front of, "I don't know. This is stupid, I'm your best friend. We both know that."
Claire nodded her head emphatically in agreement, "I know! And right now, that's what I need you to be, but mostly I just need you to be you."
Bennett shook his head in obvious frustration and confusion and opened his mouth to say something, but Claire beat him to the punch, "If you aren't Macy's boyfriend, and you aren't my boyfriend then who are you?"
Claire's heart immediately punched in pain at the look of betrayal he gave her as he completely deflated and quit trying to absentmindedly push toward the door.
"How could you say that to me, Claire?" he asked with obvious hurt and a little of the betrayal she'd seen on his face.
Claire's eyes filled with tears for him as she dropped her hold on his chest and grabbed his hands in hers instead, she squeezed both of them tightly as she brought them to her chest.
She was tongue tied for a moment, filled with absolute regret for saying something she knew would only cause him pain. She struggled for a moment before she finally admitted in a painfully strangled voice,
"… I can't do this without you."
She looked up at him with the tears still in her eyes as she shrugged in regret since she knew it wasn't fair to him how much she needed his help.
"I would never ask you to." He assured her like it was obvious as he squeezed her hands in response.
Claire nodded gratefully, before she cleared her throat and blinked toward the ceiling, barely managing to clear the tears from her eyes,
"But focusing all your energy on me is never going to be enough to fill the hole Macy left in your life. I can't take her spot for you, Cris." Claire was barely able to stutter out in a whisper so no one else would hear and still maintain direct eye contact with him.
Bennett gasped in a weird choke-like noise, obviously frustrated and hurt just the same. He squeezed her hands tightly as he turned his head to look away from her for a second before he surprised her by suddenly turning sharply to look right back at her.
He used his hands holding hers to guide her back against the door only a foot behind her before he dropped them and used one hand to push against the door beside her head, pressing himself right up to her as he grabbed her face in his other hand and then before she could even question what he was doing, he was kissing her.
Claire snapped her eyes shut tightly as his lips forced pressure on hers before she could think clearly enough to press it right back, knowing she wanted this just as badly as he did.
The problem was that what she wanted wasn't the taste of him but for it to work, for the kiss to force her to want him.
It was nice. Moving her lips with his again as he kissed and tasted her, as he dug his fingers in her hair, her hands on his chest and squeezing his shoulders.
It had always been nice kissing Bennett but this time it was missing something that had been there even when she'd used to kiss him when they were dating. And it didn't help that holding his body now felt so much more like the way she'd once held someone else instead of the way a smaller Bennett used to feel.
They both pulled away at the same moment, like they had been shocked with a spark. The opposite was true though and it seemed like he'd realized it in the same second she did.
Bennett kept his eyes closed and his hand on the door with the other in her hair as he placed his forehead against hers in the same way Quil always had when he'd been frustrated with how much he wanted her, he was even the exact same height as Quil making the angles of their foreheads the same…. and yet … it just wasn't the same.
"Dammit, Meredith." Bennett mumbled and she knew hear in his voice the tears in his eyes, it was probably why he refused to open them. "Why couldn't this work!?"
Claire's eyes teared up again as she reached up and grabbed fistfuls of his shirt in her palms, squeezing them tightly in her hands like it was the only thing for her to hang onto. She couldn't even answer with her voice choked in her throat and her heart pounding as she just tried not to cry.
"We would be so much better for each other than they are." He muttered in frustration. "Why couldn't it have been us bound together!?"
He suddenly used his hand against the door to slap angrily against it in frustration and Claire gasped in shock at the slap that rang next to her ear.
It was silent for a second as he stayed with his forehead against hers and the slap to the door echoed through her ears.
"Will you try to call her again this weekend?" Claire pleaded in a small, broken voice, knowing that Macy had refused to speak to him since he'd picked Claire's friendship over her.
Bennett shook his head slightly against hers, she thought it was more in frustration and than denial though.
"She's not going to answer." He whispered and his voice was just as broken as hers had been.
Claire was shocked when a sob suddenly leaked out of her in response. Before she even knew what was happening, Bennett was pulling her so that she was in his arms as he held onto her and put his hand on the back of her hair as she leaned into his shoulder. If Bennett couldn't make it work with Macy than what hope would either of them ever have for happiness? She just held onto him for a moment with her hands still held in his shirt in between them as she tried to stop crying.
"Will you just try?" she begged in a muffled whisper against his shirt, even knowing how much she was asking of him.
He stiffened a little against her before he silently nodded his head against the side of hers.
She nodded too as she pulled back and wiped at the tears on her face, not quite looking at him.
"I need to go." She muttered just as a throat cleared from across the room.
Bennett moved one of his arms from around her so they could both look over to see Jamie standing on the last step of the stairs and looking suspiciously between the two of them.
"What-?" he started to ask but Claire took a step toward him before he could.
"Be good this weekend, alright?" she said brightly as she reached for him.
He hesitated for just a moment before running across the room and strangling her legs in his tight grasp.
"I'll miss you, Claire!" he said brightly.
Claire laughed as she hugged onto the top of his head before reaching across him and grabbing the handle of her suitcase. She dropped him and he took a step back to stand with his arm now wrapped around Bennett's legs.
Claire looked at Bennett with tears blooming in her eyes again for him (and just a little for her too) as she reached a hand out to him. He grabbed it and they both smiled sadly at each other as they squeezed, saying goodbye without saying anything at all.
She dropped his hand and opened the door finally, stepping through and pulling her suitcase behind her before she turned to look at both of them as she spoke over her shoulder,
"I love you." She said sincerely.
Jamie laughed and Bennett smiled appreciatively at her before she quickly closed the door behind her and then locked it for good measure.
She took a bracing breath and finally turned around to face what was waiting for her.
Quil was standing in the driveway leaning against the Camaro with his arms folded across his chest, clearly waiting for her appearance. He had his head tilted and was studying her intensely as she pulled her suitcase toward him and the car. She knew he must have known she was by the door with Bennett if he hadn't come in and he raised his eyebrows at her when she was only a few feet away like he was waiting for her to offer an explanation.
She didn't, but she did blush and look away as she moved around him toward the trunk that he popped with his keys in his pocket still.
"Did he just…?"
Claire didn't answer as she refused to look at him before she shoved the handle of her case down and bent to lift it, but he was already there, grabbing it and then shoving it into the trunk.
He reached up and grabbed the trunk lid where it was lifted right in front of her so that his knuckles brushed the front of her shirt. The accidental contact sent chills through her entire body.
This would be the first time they'd be alone together since the night he'd broken up with her almost three weeks earlier. She had avoided being left in a room alone with him at all costs, but it looked like she couldn't avoid it anymore.
She thought about it nervously to herself as he slammed the lid shut with his arm still across her as he held it against the car so that his body was pointed towards her as he looked at her in confusion, clearly wanting an explanation about whatever he thought he'd just overheard happening between her and Bennett in the house.
Instead of responding she just cleared her throat and backed away, moving away from him before she walked around the car and got in the passenger side without waiting for him.
She had to take a deep and shaking breath, because sitting in this seat brought too many memories back. It hadn't been this difficult when she'd driven the Camaro the week before, she hadn't driven it enough times for it to trigger emotional memories and she was too nervous about her meeting to notice anyways.
The passenger seat was a completely different story. Somehow, from here, the entire car smelled of him and made her tense as memory after memory of moments and conversations and the way he'd touch her leg as he drove slammed into her. When he slid into the driver's seat a moment later, she suddenly realized he looked like he was wearing the exact same thing he'd worn the day he'd picked her up from the airport when she'd flown home from Tennessee… the first time she'd seen him in person after he'd asked to officially be her boyfriend…
The memory seemed to get stuck forcefully in her throat and she couldn't stop herself from biting down hard on her bottom lip as she immediately turned in her seat to face the window so he couldn't see her expression. It was stupid anyway, he basically always wore the same three things, she couldn't get hung up on it now.
"So, what was that about?" he asked a little suspiciously as he leaned forward and started the car clearly still asking about her near silent moment with Bennett in the house though she honestly wasn't sure how much he would have been able to overhear with his extra-strength hearing.
She refused to reply as she bit down even harder on her lip, absolutely refusing to cry as her hands shook and she shoved them under her legs on the seat. Quil put the car in reverse and pulled out while he seemed to wait for her to respond. When she didn't, he sighed as he put the car in drive and then muttered in a resolved tone,
"Seatbelt."
She reached up and grabbed it, before pulling it across herself and snapping it in the buckle without ever looking away from the window she couldn't even really see out of.
He pulled away from the house finally and started to drive off as a silence settled between them. It was heavy and loaded, filled with all sorts of unspoken thoughts. Mostly questions and accusations just sitting in between them, separating them more than the console between them ever could, after all, Claire had first-hand experience knowing how easy it was to climb across that console to straddle his lap.
When the silence got to a weight Claire thought was going to drown her she finally cleared her throat, they were outside of city limits and already on the highway when she finally asked in a croaked voice, "What did you decide to do with Butch this weekend?"
"Uh…. My mom's keeping him for a few days." Quil muttered in a distracted sort of way and Claire finally turned in response to look at him.
He was focused on driving as he turned the wheel, expertly navigating the car around an almost blind turn with thick green forest on either side of the road.
"Your mom's keeping him?" she asked in confusion wondering if she'd misunderstood.
"Yeah." He answered with a shrug like it wasn't a big deal and yet he didn't take his eyes off the road to look at her.
Claire turned blankly to look out the windshield in shock since she obviously wasn't going to get an explanation from him about it.
"Weird." She muttered to herself before she even realized she'd said it out loud.
"Why is that weird?" he asked unconcerned before he finally looked over at her and they locked eyes.
His eyes were so dark and so familiar. She hated that about them, how familiar they felt on her, she immediately looked away out the windshield again.
"….. I just didn't realize you were talking to your mom again, that's all." She sighed in reply.
Quil shrugged before he started moving his shoulders, trying to roll them back before stretching his neck side to side. "I ….. um…" he started before he stopped.
"You what, Quil?" she asked without ever looking at him.
He shrugged again uncomfortably before he finally admitted, "I told her we broke up."
Claire sat in stunned silence for a second as that news settled on her.
Of course, his mom only had a problem with him when she was his girlfriend, as soon as he was done with her though? No problem, she could watch his dog and do him whatever favors he needed.
"Of course, you did." Claire muttered a little darkly to herself even knowing he would hear her.
"Look, Claire, what happened back there between you and Bennett-?" Quil started sounding almost urgent about it like he couldn't hold the question back anymore.
"-Can we just listen to some music or something?" Claire quickly cut across him. "We don't have to talk or act like this is a normal thing for us, alright? It's not. We're not us so let's just don't talk."
She refused to look to see how he'd react to her words as she studied the trees flashing past outside the windshield. He was silent and Claire tensed to hear his lecture about how they were 'still them, even if they weren't together' when instead he suddenly leaned forward and hit the button, turning the radio on so that immediately the car was filled with top forty hits instead of the heavy silence.
Claire blew out a breath of relief in response and put her head back against the head rest with her eyes closed, thinking maybe she could just fake sleep until Seattle so that they never had to interact at all. The only problem with that was he knew her sleeping patterns too well. He'd definitely know if she was faking.
Surprisingly though the loud music soothed her, it eased her out of the tension that the expectation of interacting with him put her in.
She hadn't been sleeping well. There was too much stress in her life for that. Between Jamie's wellbeing, Rachel's pregnancy, and her dad's estate she hadn't been able to really sleep in weeks.
It had been at the meeting that she'd had to reschedule to pick up Jamie that she found out her father had left almost his entire financial value to her (which was significantly more than she'd ever anticipated). He'd left twenty thousand for Rachel and Jamie each, and his car was specifically willed to Rachel. But he'd left Claire everything else. Even his half share in the house and joint investments he'd had with her mom. Investments in his name alone were left to her along with his entire retirement and life savings. It was almost three quarters of a million dollars.
To say that Claire had been shocked was a definite understatement. She'd found out that day that her mom was contesting the will since Robert hadn't left anything to her. And the attorney that had handled his will had to help Claire hire her own attorney to represent her since the money was all left for Claire to use 'at her discretion'. Not that she had any idea what that meant.
Her father's attorney had called to explain the situation and set up a meeting time the week before. Claire had gone shopping to buy new clothes and shoes to wear to a meeting with a least three lawyers since she had absolutely nothing in her closet that would ever properly convey the message, 'don't worry, I'm responsible enough to handle my father's entire estate without my mom's help!'. She also bought Rachel's wedding dress at the same time since she'd spotted a dress at the mall and knew Rachel wasn't really in a state to shop for one even if she was finally starting to get through a few hours at a time without barfing a lung up.
The meeting had gone well, fortunately, and Claire's legal team (her head was still spinning at the fact that she even had a team of legal professionals) had all felt confident that though she was still a minor, her father had been in his legal rights to leave it to her. There was a date with a judge set for next week because of her mother's contesting it, but assuming that went well, Claire would be three-quarters of a million dollars richer this time next week, and that didn't even include the non-liquid investments.
She hadn't told Quil anything about it. He wasn't her boyfriend, fiancé, or….. husband …. and it wasn't his business anyways. It was hers… to share when and with who she wanted.
He'd been coming around the house every two or three days in the evenings when they were both off of work and would stay for dinner and then hang out for a few hours afterwards. Sometimes they would play big group board games with Rachel and Travis if they were there, or else she and Jamie would play Mario Kart with him. Whenever she could get away with it, she'd leave Jamie alone with Quil and lock herself in her room researching inheritance law on her computer or returning emails from her lawyer's office.
It was incredibly painful for her any time Quil walked through the door acting like the last year of their life had never even happened. He didn't seem effected at all by the drastic change in their relationship and honestly Claire knew that that was best for Jamie. It gave him consistency if even at her expense.
Claire could barely stomach acting like it didn't bother her at all when Quil was there, like it was totally normal for him to show up for dinner and ask her questions about her day and if she was ready for school to start again in a month like she was still a fifteen year old sophomore instead of the now stand-in single mother working full time (she was still nannying Emily and Sam's children along with Jamie), who did ninety percent of the cooking and cleaning at home. Bennett probably did at least five percent and the rest was divided between, Rachel, Quil, and their mom if she was ever home long enough to notice.
Claire hadn't spoken to her mother in over a week. Her mom avoided the house a lot now, so it wasn't hard to do. Especially since she wasn't reaching out to her either. They hadn't ever spoken about what had happened at the hospital the night Claire's father died or about the things that Claire and Rachel had realized were going on. Claire didn't want to. She didn't want to know. There was no good explanation her mom could give her, and she didn't want to hear the bad ones.
She just didn't want to have anything to do with her mother at all… especially since she suspected that was what her father wanted too and why he'd left her everything…. To keep her mother out of it. She didn't want her around and she didn't want her anywhere near Jamie. She'd even asked her legal team at their meeting if there was any official way for her to take Jaime but as a minor there was just no real way she could gain custody over her mom. She briefly thought about working with Rachel to get custody together of him since Rachel was eighteen but realized there was no way that was really plausible now that Rachel had so much in her own life. She was newly married, having a baby, and about to have a husband reporting for basic training in just a few short weeks, she didn't have room for a sibling custody battle too… so, not knowing what else to do, Claire had just given up the idea.
Rachel and Travis's wedding had been the day after Claire's meeting. Their mom wasn't there, and Rachel still hadn't told her about either the marriage or the baby. Rachel was just as angry as Claire was and hadn't wanted her there though it had been surprisingly beautiful when Travis and Rachel had stood in the courthouse in front of a shockingly cheery middle-aged judge, with only Claire, Jamie, Bennett, Quil, and Travis' parents standing behind them to witness the ceremony.
Everyone had dressed up, and Rachel looked beautiful in the cream colored, layered, flowy, spaghetti strap dress that Claire had bought (not to mention that her boobs had looked fantastic, thanks to Peanut.) Claire had curled her short, chin-length hair in small half curls all springing brightly out from her head and then placed the flower crown Rachel had opted for instead of a bouquet, on her head. She looked like a bohemian, hipster, flower child, and her fingers were still stained with chalk and oil paints. It was a quintessential Rachel look, and she was absolutely beautiful.
Trav had worn the suit he'd bought for prom with a plain black tie and probably the biggest smile Claire had ever seen. Claire herself had worn the same dress she'd worn the day before since it was ironed and probably more expensive than anything else she had in her closet, and forced Jamie, grumbling, into his Easter suit with a floral tie. Quil and Bennett had both come in the same suits they'd worn to Robert's funeral, but Claire refused to think about that as she stood between them feeling the tension radiating off the both of them.
It was the only time the two of them had been in the same room since Quil broke Bennett's -now completely healed- jaw and as soon as the ceremony ended Claire had sent them both on their way in separate directions. They weren't even running patrols together and Leah was having to bend over backwards to make a shift schedule that didn't have them overlapping.
Needless to say, it had been a tense and sleepless last few weeks for Claire, but she was handling it. At least that's what she was telling herself. Rachel was still on her honeymoon even though she was supposed to be back tomorrow, Claire was feeding herself and Jamie three times a day and Jamie seemed to be doing remarkably better than he was the weeks following their dad's death.
She never stopped to think about her breakup with Quil and since she never let herself be alone with him it had worked out pretty well as a coping strategy. Jamie thought everything was fine between them and wasn't worried anymore about Quil disappearing from his life. Quil was clearly getting enough contact with Claire to not go absolutely insane with his imprint needs. And Claire refused to let anyone see that she wasn't doing absolutely fine. No matter where she was, or who asked, she was fine. Whether it was Emily or Sam getting home at the end of the day, or Leah calling to check on her or Quil looking at her measuring from across the dinner table, she was fine.
She refused to ever cry anymore, the exception being today for Bennett. And she ran at least four miles daily, blasting energetic songs and refusing to ever listen to ballads.
The only one who seemed to know what she was truly feeling was Bennett.
She didn't even tell him. He just knew. He just looked at her without her Quil and knew that she was just as broken as he was without his Macy. They never even talked about it. He would just show up sometimes, coming in through her window in the middle of the night after his shifts, with pints of ice cream, or the very few random nights her mom was home, Claire would put Jamie to bed and then sneak out to spend the night at Bennett's house. They would share the ice cream and sit on whosever's bed and watch Grey's Anatomy, Claire would ask him for updates about Macy sometimes, but he would just tell her the last time he'd left a message or run past her house, they never talked about how he felt about it and Claire didn't need to ask.
Most days the only time Claire felt like she wasn't putting on a full Oscar worthy performance were those moments with Bennett where she could finally let her guard down, or else during her shower after her run each day. It was the only time she would cry, to exhausted to fight it anymore and with the water hitting her face, she could pretend she wasn't. Or at least she could until she ended up sobbing so hard, she curled into a ball on the shower floor unable to even stand. At least she knew she wouldn't be interrupted and if she shoved her fist in her mouth (which she always ended up doing) she could keep her sobs muffled enough so that no one could overhear over the shower.
Her routine was working and working decently well. She had managed to avoid her mom for weeks on end, and she'd completely avoided being alone with Quil, except for the time she'd come out of her shower late one afternoon, wrapped in just a towel and ran smack into Quil's chest exactly the same way she had almost a lifetime ago.
She'd screamed at him probably more irrationally than she'd ever had before (including toddler years) screaming at him to get out and that he wasn't ever allowed in her bedroom and how could he not think to knock or just wait downstairs. He looked a little upset but just surrendered with hands raised defensively, muttering that it wasn't intentional and to calm down. She'd been shaking like a leaf when he'd left shutting the door behind him. She locked it and slammed her head against it, refusing to cry again, especially since she was still recovering from her episode in the shower, but the thought of him seeing her naked was so much worse now that he'd actually seen her. She couldn't explain the logic behind it, but she teared up and bit her lip as her shaking hands wiped at her eyes.
It wasn't until she'd gotten dressed (and in much more layers and covering much more skin then really necessary) and gone downstairs to join Quil and Jamie at the table playing monopoly and forcing herself to act like everything was perfectly normal, that Quil asked what time it was that Bennett had left last night and Claire realized that he had caught his scent in her room from the night before. He'd said it so casually it seemed like a passing question, but Claire knew that was for Jamie's sake alone.
'I dunno.' Claire said as more of a hum than actual words while refusing to look at him, he didn't need to know that Bennett stayed the night and hadn't left until after nine that morning. Two hours later, Claire had said that she needed to work on homework (which Quil obviously knew was a lie since it was summer break) and gone upstairs and locked herself in her room by eight o'clock. An hour and a half after that she could hear Jamie and Quil talking to each other as they moved up the stairs. She immediately shut her computer with all the legal documents open on it and laid on her bed with the baby monitor in her hand. She watched on the screen as Quil walked behind Jamie into the room and helped him into pajama's before tucking him into bed, making Jamie giggle when he used his huge hands to tuck the covers six inches deep under his body on each side, mummifying him the same way he had always tucked Claire in as a child. Claire smiled as tears filled her eyes while she watched.
She quickly sniffed and blinked the moisture away as she watched Quil say goodnight before he turned off Jamie's light, making the monitor switch to night vision mode and then shut the door lightly behind him. Claire held her breath as she waited to hear Quil walk down the stairs and out the front door, but a second later there was an incredibly soft knock on her door.
Claire's heart jumped almost painfully, and she bit her lip in response since she wasn't sure if he'd been able to hear it. She forced her breathing out as softly and slowly as she possibly could since she really didn't know what he'd hear through a door and a few moments later she heard him walk down the stairs and out the door.
Claire suddenly sat forward with a jerk when Quil put the car in park, realizing that she'd fallen asleep thinking about pretending to sleep and reliving the last few hellish weeks of her life.
"Morning." Quil hummed a little sarcastically since it was almost two in the afternoon, looking over at her from the driver's seat.
They were already in the parking garage at the airport. Claire had slept through the entire drive, including traffic and stoplights.
It suddenly occurred to her that she'd slept so hard because the thing she'd been needing the most to sleep was Quil's presence. The knowledge hit with a twisted sickness in her gut at the thought that she'd slept well now simply because he was there.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep." She muttered as she wiped at her face and refused to look at him.
"It's okay. You probably needed it. You haven't been sleeping well." He said easily without making any move to get out of the car even though their flight left in less than two hours and then needed to get through security on a Friday which would probably be a nightmare.
Claire's eyebrows pulled together in a mix of confusion and frustration as she turned to look at him in disapproval. There were too many things she wanted to say in response but they were all too close to how she really felt to say at all, so she stayed silent as she looked at him until he finally explained his remark.
"I still pay attention, Claire. I know when you're tired, even when you don't act like it." He said as his eye's locked in with hers again in that same stupid connecting way they kept doing every time she ever let herself actually look at him. "… and I haven't been sleeping well without you there either." He admitted almost like he was reading her mind, only barely hesitating to say it.
Claire bit down hard on her lip as she looked back out the windshield to stare at the cement pillar in front of her trying so hard to keep her expression neutral and control her reaction before she suddenly felt Quil's thumb on her bottom lip, softly asking her to release it.
Her head snapped back to him, and their eyes locked again. He still had his thumb on her bottom lip and the words came slipping from her like they refused to be contained,
"Then why are you doing this!?" she begged him desperately.
She hated with everything inside of her that she was begging, but, she told herself, if he really did regret it, if he really did miss her, it'd be worth her pride.
"You know why." He gasped like he was begging her right back.
She slapped his hand away from her lips he was still touching as her eyes filled with tears. She shoved the car door open and went to step out before the seatbelt locked and threw her right back against the seat. A single tear leaked out of her eye as she reached down and released the seat belt in an angry huff.
"Claire…." Quil tried in a tired voice.
She finally got out of the car and slammed the door shut behind her before marching directly toward their terminal wiping her eyes and face and doing her best to walk at a normal pace so that she could get lost in the pedestrian traffic headed in the same direction.
She was halfway there when she realized she forgot her suitcase in the trunk.
She huffed in frustration at the thought, making the tiny middle-aged woman walking next to her, look over at her in concern. She told herself it didn't matter since Quil would obviously bring it, and she'd have to acknowledge him no matter what once they were in a whole group with the wedding party. But just as she had the thought, she heard an excited squeal and looked over at the automatic doors in front of their airline check in that she was headed for. Sofia was jumping up in the air right next to Leah and waving at her.
"There's Claire!" she squealed excitedly as she waved her over. "See, I told you they'd get here in time for us all to go through security together!"
Claire headed her way as she took in the bigger picture and realized the entire wedding party was there waiting behind Sofia and Leah. Brady and Collin standing around next to Brady's younger brother Tag who for years everyone had assumed would be the next wolf but had never phased. Next to Leah and Sofia was Gracie, Sofia's older sister who Claire had only met a handful of times, mostly at the dress fitting a couple weeks before. And then Claire as she walked up to meet the group all converging in excitement upon her.
She knew they all had to know about the breakup, it would have been impossible to keep that a secret from the pack, but though she'd spoken on the phone a couple times with Leah and exchanged a few wedding centered texts with Sofia, this was the first time she'd seen any of them since her and Quil's less than amicable split. She suddenly worried that she should have forced Quil to tell her exactly how much they all knew. She started to feel like she was having a panic attack as she reached the group and forced a smile as Sofia jumped her with a hug and an excited squeal (Sofia's energy and excitement levels seemed to have risen drastically since she'd gotten engaged) and Leah immediately asked where Quil was.
Claire opened her mouth to answer but Collin beat her to it when he looked over at Leah and said offhandedly, "Maybe they didn't come together."
"They both were coming from the Mekah reservation, why wouldn't they have come together?" Brady replied but he was staring right at her and suddenly the pieces all clicked together. They were testing her to see how she'd respond. They'd clearly all been talking about their breakup but now wanted to see with their own eyes how she was handling it.
"I'm right here, Numb-nuts." Quil snarked before Claire could respond and she jumped about a foot in the air when she realized he'd caught up with her without her even realizing it. "I was just bringing the bags while Claire looked for you guys."
Claire grabbed her bag from him without looking at him at all and could feel everyone's eyes on the two of them again, it was just like that last bonfire when everyone had seen them together for the first time except now the exact opposite.
"Thanks." She muttered and forced herself to look up at him since she knew everyone was watching.
"Numb-Nuts? Why would my nuts be numb? Don't you mean, dumb-nuts?" Collin asked at the same time Claire spoke, thankfully taking the attention away from them until Quil reached over and backhanded Collin right in the junk and Collin hissed in obvious pain.
"What about now?" Quil asked.
Brady laughed, "He's both dumb and numb-nuts."
Everyone laughed as Leah rubbed Collin's back only half sympathetically, and looked over to catch Claire's eyes, Claire didn't like the scrutiny there. Those dark eyes looked right through her.
"No problem, Nino." Quil said softly, immediately snagging her attention again as he belatedly responded to her thanks.
Claire's cheeks heated and she looked down at the gum stained sidewalk beneath her because even if he'd said it softly, and even if no one else had noticed, the Nino was for the group's sake, not hers. To set the precedent so they could all see how he treated her now. And how he treated her was easy to identify. He treated her like a child.
"Alright!" Sofia said excitedly to the group, "Let's go, you guys, before the plane leaves without us!"
Everyone started moving towards the doors, grabbing their bags and hurrying forward suddenly in a hurry, "Whoo! VEGAS!" Sofia suddenly screamed right as they walked through the door and Quil looked over at Brady in entertained confusion.
"She may have had a preflight drink to help calm her nerves." Brady shrugged and Quil laughed as he asked, "May have?"
They walked through the doors behind Sofia and her sister as Collin hobbled after them still hissing with his hand cupped between his legs like he was afraid Quil was going to hit him again.
Claire finally started moving forward, grateful for the small buffer between herself and Quil before Leah suddenly sidled up to her and blew a breath out between two lips pressed together.
Claire looked over at her as they walked in sync pulling their bags behind them.
"So, it's back to 'Nino' huh?" Leah asked surprisingly softly without really looking at Claire.
Claire just shrugged and tried for nonchalance as she said, "He never stopped calling me Nino."
Leah just looked at her, and it was written all over her face. There was no fooling Leah. Bennett heard what she didn't have to say and Leah saw what she refused to show.
"Yeah." Claire suddenly admitted in defeat. "It's back to 'Nino'."
Leah sighed before she slid an arm around Claire's shoulder and said, "Come on, we're losing the group."
Collin turned around from fifty feet in front of them and suddenly hollered, "She-Wolf! Nino! Move your asses! We can't hold a plane, you know!"
Claire blew a shaking breath as Leah grumbled about killing him and took off marching forward faster than Claire was willing to go. She followed behind as she let a few people separate her from the group. She looked up at an ad overhead advertising Vegas as a vacation destination just as she heard her group up ahead all break out in loud laughter at whatever Leah had done when she'd caught up to Collin.
Claire bit her lip and walked just a little faster before someone could notice that she was just maybe not completely fine.
She looked down at her feet to walk as she thought to herself, It's going to be a long weekend.
.
.
Author's note:
(Warning, this is incredibly long and tangential so feel free to skip this part!)
Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter out, you guys! It wasn't intentional on my part, just a busy week combined with a longer chapter that needed more tweaking than usual. Be sure to check back soon though since chapter six is coming pronto, or better yet just follow or favorite this story so that you get notified as soon as I post!
Along those lines I really want to say thank you to anyone who has followed, favorited, or commented. Seriously, thank you! jgjc17 , you said you went back to reread my first two instalments before starting this one? My heart, you guys! Imprintation started as an almost itch in my brain, I just had to scratch it. Rereading the Twilight series as an adult for the first time I appreciated things in a different way than I had in my tween to teenage years and it suddenly really bothered me that Claire only existed as a literary tool to set up Jacob imprinting on Renesmee... But the thing is it's implied that Renesmee basically instantly ages into Jacob's soulmate in a handful of years and her entire existence is surrounded by the supernatural... but what about Claire? Claire who was just a normal human child, living a normal human life at a normal human speed? She couldn't zoom through any awkward years and go from having a wonderful werewolf uncle roll to immediately having the perfect wolf boyfriend roll. What about high school and dances and first dates when she had to the only girl she knew who was basically betrothed to a man twice her age but that she'd known her entire life she would eventually end up with? What would that look like? How would she feel about it when she was old enough to understand it all but not old enough to be with Quil... how would a fifteen year old handle that? In my mind she would do what she'd always felt she was supposed to do, just keep Quil happy and wait patiently until he suddenly loved her the way she'd always waited for him to, the way she already loved him.
But... what if someone else was interested in her? What if there was a cute teenaged boy who was basically the perfect first boyfriend materially who had absolutely no way of knowing that Claire was anything besides completely normal. What if he wanted to take her to a dance? What would Claire do? How would Quil feel about it?
The real awkward truth is my son's name is Bennett (Slightly named after Elizabeth Bennet, tbh), I was pregnant with him when these questions and storylines started to bombard my brain and I was already thinking of that name, I gave it to my perfect-first-boyfriend-character because I wanted to see how it felt on a teenager even just in my own head. I didn't start writing even a draft until a couple months after my son was born and by that time Bennett's character already felt set, he was a Bennett to me and I'm sure that seemed incredibly Freudian to anyone who knew me in real life but in some ways Claire's Bennett was born months before mine... the point of all this is that I didn't write my story to share it -it actually gave me massive anxiety throwing it out in the world like a little baby bird without wings- but I didn't even know I could write... at all... and I thought I'd write something satisfying for myself and then it could become this favorite novel that only existed on my ipad and that I would return to annually. I had no idea other people would actually take time to read it and then to read it again? The thing is that writing Claire's and Quil's story changed my life. It changed how I saw myself, how I felt about myself, it changed what I believed possible for my life. And part of the reason it's taken me soo long to come back and put more out (other than being a control freak-perfectionist) is that I've spent most of my free time in the last year writing original content story with original characters I can actually own, and as immensely satisfying and promising as that is for me (and it really is exciting for me to potentially publish some original work) I really missed Quil and Claire and I always knew their story wasn't over and that they deserved the time it took to put them back out in the world (or at least my version of them) for anyone who wanted to experience them with me.
Whew I'm long winded and self-indulgent, I know and I apologize! But I've wanted to give a little back story and context of why this means so much to me for awhile now. Quil and Claire started it all for me and I'm incredibly invested in them, they mean more to me than any non-real people ever have (and more than some real ones if we're being completely honest) and if you're here with me, reading the fifth chapter of my third installment, whether you've followed this journey with me for a couple years or have just discovered it, thank you for making this more than just something I'd hide to read alone like some guilty pleasure! Thank you for giving me a reason to see Quil and Claire's journey through! Thank you for giving me your time and energy as you've read literally thousands of pages and hundreds of thousands of words. Thank you for making me be not the only one who ever wanted to know why Claire didn't deserve to be more than just the tool that made Jacob less creepy for Renesmee (JK... but also a little serious). Just thank you. You mean a lot to me too and I really appreciate you being here. We're basically close friends already, you just didn't know it yet!
I hope you've had happy reading and I promise to put out more soon (but for reals this time).
xoxo
Jess