New chapter!
It starts almost right after the last one ends, I just couldn't wrap up that party in only one chapter.
When John spots Clarice again, the party is starting to wind down. The children's corner is empty, as it's now long past bedtime, and Lorna went back to Marcos and the others when John shooed her off, assuring her that he was fine on his own. Other people, mostly students from his classes, keep coming to chat with him anyway, so it's not like he's really alone.
"So that's where you were hiding," she says playfully, sitting down in the chair Lorna vacated after turning it around. She grimaces and kicks off her shoes. "High heels are a bitch," she adds.
John smiles. "Did you at least have a good time?"
He doesn't mean anything by it, but it brings Clarice up short. "Sorry I reacted that way," she says. "Your friends must think I'm really impolite."
"No," John shakes his head. "I know they can be a lot, you don't have to apologize."
"I told you I wouldn't fit in."
"And I still think that's not true. I'm sure you'd get along fine if you got to know each other. Individually, maybe."
"If you say so," Clarice shrugs.
John decides to change the subject, feeling her reticence. "So, did you manage to recruit new volunteers for Shatter?"
"I think they'll come for a trial run, at least," Clarice says, with a proud smile.
"That's good," John nods. He doesn't let himself reflect on how much he likes to see Clarice smile. His conversation with Lorna is still on his mind, and he doesn't know what he's going to do.
"So this is where you work?" Clarice asks, looking around her. Now that most of the crowd has filtered out, the room looks less like a party hall.
"Yes," John says. "Classrooms are over there," he gestures toward the corridor that leads to his office. "In here we have the youth club from four to seven on school nights and all Saturday afternoon."
"Isn't that a lot to handle?"
"Not usually. There's always someone to supervise, but the kids are very respectful. A lot of them don't have anywhere else where they feel safe, and they know this place would be shut down at the first accident."
"What about uncontrollable powers?"
"That's what the classes are for," John explains. "Abilities sometimes clash, of course, but we try to educate them to use of their powers safely."
"So you have them do what? Yoga?" Clarice asks, doubtful.
John laughs. "If it helps, yes. But mostly I try to get them to separate their emotions from their abilities, so they can call them up at will instead of trashing the room when they get angry."
"Trash the room?"
"It's been known to happen. Lorna does some anger management in her self-defense classes."
"She handles self-defense?" Clarice snorts, surprised.
"She's good at it," John answers.
"I just would have thought you'd do it, being a Marine and all that."
John snorts. "Anyone who tries to punch me is more likely to break their hand than to learn anything," he says. "I can't exactly fight fair."
"Right. Super-strength," Clarice says. "I noticed your skin feels...different."
"My body's about three times as dense as normal. Mostly bullet-proof, too."
"It sounds...useful, I guess."
"It can be, when you're in the military."
"Yes, of course," Clarice nods like she'd forgotten.
"What about you? Yours is a very rare ability. I've rarely met teleporters."
"It's not like...snapping my fingers, and poof, like you see on TV."
"Then what is it like?" John asks.
"Building a portal takes a lot of energy. And I can't go far, or somewhere I can't see."
"Have you had any training?"
"With whom?" Clarice retorts acerbically. "The foster parents who wanted to hide me forever or those who took me back the minute they got a good look at me?"
John raises a hand to calm her down.
"You grew up in the foster system?"
Clarice nods, still tense.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to−" John starts.
"No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you."
"It's fine."
They smile at each other, a little awkwardly.
"Way to kill a conversation, huh?" Clarice jokes after a while.
John opens his mouth, and closes it with a laugh. Damn, she keeps surprising him.
Clarice shift on her chair. "I should go. I still have to walk home."
John bites his lip, wishing very hard he could offer to walk her. But he can barely stand as it is, and his car is back at the café since he came in with Lorna.
"It's not far," Clarice adds, picking up on his hesitation.
She's trying to reassure him, but if anything, John feels even worse. If it was a long walk, he could have found an excuse to ask Lorna or Marcos to give her a ride. Now he'll just look like a selfish guy who won't even walk home a friend he knows has anxiety issues.
Lorna comes to his rescue, once again.
"John, I need help taking down the posters from the message board," she says, coming up behind him.
"Sure," John nods, standing up as smoothly as he can manage. He turns back to Clarice. "It's going to take a while, we have to clean up before we close for the night. I'm sorry."
"It's fine," Clarice says. "You want help?"
John prepares to decline, but Lorna looks between them and reads the situation, as usual, far too well for John's comfort. "If you offer, but I warn you, it's not gonna the best part of the evening," she says. "If you stay until we're done, we can drop you at your place on our way home."
"Thanks!" Clarice chirps. "Where do we start?"
John tries not to limp too much as Lorna leads them to the message board. The three of them work together for a while, rolling up posters.
"I'll go handle the tables and chairs," Lorna says after a while, with a smug look at John.
Before she's even made it to the middle of the room, the metal chairs have begin stacking up on their own. Marcos is sweeping the floor, and everyone else seems to have left.
"I need to drop these in my office," John says, gathering the posters and flyers.
"I'll come with you," Clarice answers. She tries to take some of the rolled-up posters from him, but only manages to knock them out of his hands. They end up on the floor, and both of them laugh.
"Sorry. I'm a klutz," Clarice says.
"I'm no better," John admits.
He blinks at the easiness at which he just said that. His clumsiness, born out of having a body he can't feel properly, is something he's usually ashamed of. But with Clarice, everything seems to flow perfectly.
He stands uncomfortably while Clarice picks up the posters, because bending down that far is only going to make him fall. Thankfully, it doesn't last long and he takes the half the rolls from her to bring to his office.
"Here, all done," he says when all the posters have been stored away in a cabinet drawer. "Thank you for your help."
He turns back to find Clarice standing right behind him, far too close. With those heels, she's nearly as tall as he is, and their eyes meet.
They would be hard-pressed, later, to say who started it. Clarice is the one who brings their mouths together, but by then John has unconsciously slipped an arm around her back, his other hand holding on to the cabinet tightly so he doesn't stumble. The kiss is sweet and slightly awkward−and then intense and breathless.
John is the one who breaks it, and they stare at each other in wonder.
"That was−"
"I−"
"We−"
Stumbling over their words, they both laugh.
"That was great, and I liked it a lot, but I don't know if I want to−" Clarice says finally. She trails off with a gesture toward the both of them, as if she doesn't know how to qualify it.
"Me neither," John nods, relieved that they're on the same page. Even if he does decide to follow Lorna's advice and give it a shot, it will have to be slow. "How about...we sit on it until Tuesday after your shift and we talk about it then?"
"Talking sounds good," Clarice says.
Going back to the main room, sitting in front of Clarice in Lorna's car while they drop her off, like nothing happened is harder than John would have thought. Lorna gives him a long look, but she doesn't comment when John doesn't say a word until they're in the apartment, lost in his thoughts.
He has a lot to think about.
The next morning, John tells himself he should have known his body would make him pay for staying on his feet so much. Hell, he did know, and he did it anyway.
He curses last-night-himself through his morning routine, as his legs and back keep spasming. It takes him over half-an-hour more than usual just to shower and dress, and Marcos and Lorna both wince at his limp when he makes it into the kitchen for breakfast. It's Sunday, so the café is closed and they're all off work today.
"You okay?" Marcos asks.
"I'm fine," John says, dropping onto a chair. "I was on my feet for too long yesterday."
"It's the third day this week where you can barely stand."
"I told you I'm fine. Just need to take it easy for today."
"You were already in pain last night," Marcos remarks. "You were taking extra pills."
John throws his hands in the air in annoyance. "Yeah, I was," he admits. "Happy now?"
Marcos ignores his provocation completely, going down his own train of thoughts.
"Why didn't you at least bring your cane?"
John opens his mouth, ready to retort, then sighs. "I did," he says honestly. "I just didn't use it."
It stayed in his office, out of sight, all night long.
"But...why?"
"Because of Clarice," Lorna interferes before John can think of an answer.
He throws her a dirty look.
"No! I just−didn't want to," John finishes lamely. Given that both Marcos and Lorna noticed him in more pain than usual last night, it's a completely unbelievable excuse.
"John, no one thinks less of you because you're walking with a cane. We all know what you've been through."
John stops himself from shouting that that's exactly why he's so sick of everyone's sympathy. They've had one instance or another of this conversation too many times in the last few months.
"Clarice doesn't know," Lorna states, looking straight at him.
Marcos turns to her with a frown, then back toward John, disapproval in his eyes. "You still haven't told her? Why?"
"I don't know, maybe I just want one person in my life who doesn't treat me like I'm fragile!" John explodes.
"I don't think you're fragile! John, you're the strongest person I know, and not just because of your abilities. But you need to give yourself time to heal!"
"Marcos, it's been eight months. I'm tired of being coddled, okay? So what if I want to enjoy being with someone who doesn't know what happened for a little while?"
Marcos looks at him for a moment, like what he's just said is the most ridiculous thing.
"You'll have to tell her eventually," he says. "Or she'll find out on her own."
John sighs. "I know. I will. Just−not yet."
Spending most of the day on the couch leaves John with too much time to think. He pretends to be engrossed in the mutant center's books so that Lorna and Marcos don't notice how much he spaces out, but everything he has on his mind paired with the pain fog means he doesn't get any actual work done.
Clarice is at the forefront of his thoughts. He still has no idea what he's going to tell her on Tuesday. That he enjoyed the kiss but is not ready to start anything with her? He doesn't even know if it's the truth anymore.
If he's honest with himself, his attraction for Clarice has gone past the purely physical stage a while ago. They've already bonded, over hot chocolate and coffee and anxiety issues. They could decide to remain friends and refuse to act on anything else, but John is not sure how long that's going to work.
Their kiss was incredible, enticing and sweet and somehow comfortable. And John didn't stop once to think about how different it was from kissing Gus.
He doesn't know how he feels about that.
Marcos pulls him out of his reflection after a while by coming up behind him.
"You want to go walk Zingo? She's been asking for a while."
John nods. "In a minute," he says with a grimace, his hand going automatically to massage his thigh.
Zingo is his dog, technically, Marcos and Lorna got her for him seven months ago when he got out of the hospital, having read about support animals. John has walked her, or at least taken her to the park across the street, every day he's been capable of it since. It gives him a good reason to get out of bed.
He stands up painfully, leaning on furniture to get to the corridor. "I'll be back in ten," he calls out, retrieving his backup cane and Zingo's leash. She's at his feet in seconds.
"Hey, girl, ready to go out?"
John pulls on his jacket, if only to look like he's dressed for the slightly chilly weather, and limps out the door.
It's raining lightly, so the park is quiet for a Sunday. John drags himself over to a bench, not caring much about getting his clothes wet, and frees Zingo from her leash. She's well trained by now, she knows to come back when he calls her name, to stay away from people, and even not to pull on her leash when John's walking her.
A few runners pass him by, and John watches them with a sort of longing. He hasn't been able to run in a long time. It used to be something he loved, as a kid, running just for the fun of it, for the feel of the wind in his face.
That's another obstacle with Clarice, the things she doesn't know. If they start dating, she'll find everything out. What are the chances she'll run away? Why would she want to be with someone with so much baggage? So many issues?
Is John ready to date again, to date someone who is not Gus? To move on?
By the time he's made a decision, he and Zingo are both soaking wet, and his legs are seizing up. John gives Zingo an ear rub before he reattaches her leash and stands up painfully.
"It's time to go home, girl," he says.
So, a major development in John and Clarice's relationship, but they're not together yet... John still has to tell her some things about him. Plenty of clues about what that is in this chapter, what do you think?