Again, boundless appreciation for everyone who has reviewed.

Cataclysm

Disclaimer: Disclaimed.

Chapter Five

"What do you mean cancelled?" Eli had come home that morning to find Imogen's face buried in a pillow on the couch, her shoes still on, and sporadic muffled groans escaping her deflated body. She lifted her face, and Eli was surprised to identify a lack of tears.

"Dave - the director - quit, and since he was sleeping with half of the female cast, so did they." Eli shimmied into a spot on the couch, lifting her feet and setting them on his lap once he got settled.

"Imo, don't worry about it," he said softly, rubbing her back. "You were too good for this one." Imogen glanced at him over her shoulder, pausing before she flipped onto her back.

"Just like the three before it..." she trailed off, and Eli instinctively readied himself for an outburst. When Imogen sat up slightly and reached her hand out towards him gently, he smiled softly and closed his eyes, feeling her featherlight fingers in his hair. He kept his eyes closed, focused on the tingling trail she traced down his jaw and around the back of his neck, barely noting when she shifted towards him gracefully.

Once he felt breath on his nose, he looked up at a kneeling Imogen, her eyes regarding him from above with a peaceful tenderness. Her lips met his softly, and he let their mouths move together with ease. His hands found her waist, slipping just under the hem of her shirt to feel her warm skin, and her grip on his neck tightened. He spread his fingers across her back, slowly pulling her stomach into his. Imogen made a tiny satisfied noise that Eli was used to, but he smiled into their kiss and was met with the demands of her tongue dragging across his bottom lip.

Their kisses quickly turned from languid to lively, and Eli was soon on his back, Imogen straddling his hips as she kissed a fiery path from his mouth to his earlobe. He groaned as her teeth grazed the sensitive skin, and shuddered at the feeling of her hot breath. "Imogen," he growled, his hands pulling desperately at her shirt. He felt her grin just before she released a breathy giggle.

"You used the coffee maker," she whispered huskily, her kisses relocating to the underside of his jaw. Eli's hands stilled.

"Huh?" She leaned back, and Eli bit back a reaction to the feel of her settling firmly against him. She had a glint in her eye as she repeated slowly, "You used the coffee maker," punctuating her words with subtle rotations of her hips. Eli gripped her hipbones, interrupting her movements.

"So?" Imogen was suddenly uncharacteristically coy, and Eli felt vaguely unsettled.

"I know we only have it because of me, so the fact that you used it while I wasn't around... It's just nice." Eli stared at her blankly, and she frowned.

"What, Mr. Writer has no sense of sentimentality?" He looked away, shifting uncomfortably, and Imogen contorted herself to intervene his line of vision. "What's wrong?"

"I didn't use the coffee-maker," he said slowly. She grew visibly confused.

"What? Was someone else here?" Eli shook his head.

"Well, no - I mean, I used it, tried to use it, but... it was terrible. So I went out and bought a coffee instead. With Jake." Imogen, who had begun to smile sympathetically, raised an eyebrow.

"With Jake?"

"Yeah. He... wanted to talk." Imogen extracted herself from Eli's lap, allowing him to turn away from her.

"What did you talk about?" She waited patiently for an answer, growing worried each second that he did not respond. Finally, he took a breath and answered.

"Clare."

She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Well, of course you did," she said lightly, not a whisper but much too quiet. Eli reached for her hand, but she ran it through her hair so naturally that Eli was unsure wether it had been to refute his gesture or not.

"What do you mean of course?" She forced a laugh.

"It just seems... inevitable. It's the biggest thing you have in common, isn't it? Why not talk about her?" Eli's face fell. This was not right. To Imogen, everything was something. Either fate, or a sign, or a hidden sentiment. 'You used the coffee-maker.' Everything was something.

"It's not like that, Imogen," Eli found himself saying. She looked up at him, her eyes flat and unaffected, very much out of character.

"It's not like what?" He faltered; he didn't even know himself what it was and wasn't, and this side of his girlfriend - the calm, collected, laid-back side that he had never seen before - made him even less sure of it all.

"I love you." Imogen's face fell, and she stood up, both hands on her hips as her lips began to mutter words Eli couldn't hear. Slowly, she turned back to face him, an oddly unaffected smile presenting itself again.

"That's not supposed to be a defense," she whispered, the cracking of her voice betraying genuine emotions. "But, I love you too." Very subtly, she raised a hand to swipe beneath her glasses before walking to their bedroom, shutting the door inaudibly.

Eli rapped his knuckles on the door succinctly, his left hand clenched into a tight fist at his side. It can go away. It had to. All the stress, all the avoiding, all the fighting. He breathed heavily and uncomfortably, hearing light footsteps shuffle on the other side of the door. They paused, and Eli threw on a nervously friendly face in case he was being looked at.

"Go away." He sighed.

"I'm not here to fight with you, Clare, promise."

"I don't care, go away." Eli stomped one foot impatiently, breathing through his teeth.

"If you don't open this door, I'm just going to stand on the other side of it." He heard Clare snort.

"Oh, scary," she mocked, and Eli smirked, smug with realization that she was taking for granted how well he had once known her.

"I'm going to stand on the other side of it and sing death metal songs at the top of my lungs." He waited a moment, and made no effort to conceal the tactless burst of laughter that emerged from the pit of stomach when he heard the lock flip open and the handle began to turn.

"That's not even real singing," came Clare's annoyed reply, and Eli only chuckled again as he walked past her and into her apartment. "I- Hey! What are you- did I say you could come in?" she demanded.

"Well," Eli began patronizingly, turning to face her, "You tend to yell, and we have neighbours." Clare's face turned stony.

"You know, you knocked on my door, saying you weren't here to fight, so it's pretty obnoxious to waltz into my house and provoke me, don't you think?" Eli hesitated; Clare had come much closer to him, so that she now had her finger in his face.

"I'm just..." All of the frustrated confidence that he had been drawing from to knock on her door and extort his way into her living room faded in the moments that he couldn't help but look at her eyes. The bright blue he used to adore was graying, and the only life within them was manifested in the flashes of anger she felt towards him. He remembered the way it had felt to see Julia's face for the last time, so unlike he remembered, and he was suddenly praying to a god he didn't believe in that he had not been the one to hollow Clare Edwards into the shell before him. In the moments he realized just how raw the wounds he'd left her still remained, he crumbled. "I'm so sorry."

Clare brought her hand down, crossing her arms over her chest in a pose that Eli found heartbreakingly confused. "Don't say that unless you mean it," she whispered, all of the hateful conviction vanished from her voice. Before Eli could respond, she had turned her back to him, walking to the couch absentmindedly.

"I do mean it. Clare-" he heard her protest weakly as he walked towards where she was sitting, but ignored it. "Clare, I'm sorry, I wouldn't lie to you about that, I-"

"No, Eli," she reaffirmed, more loudly. Eli stopped, watching her drop her face into her hands. "You aren't sorry, you're just frustrated. A part of your past that you tried for so many years to forget keeps running you over like a freight train, bringing with it all of the full-force feelings you felt the first time, and there's nothing you can do about it. You're trying so, so hard to... ignore it, or avoid it, or pretend it's not happening, but it is, constantly. And it's stopped being this dark corner of your mind that, once upon a time, you managed to conceal beneath all your other regrets, and secrets, and mistakes, because now it's seeping into the rest of your brain - the rest of your life. You and Imogen... it's coming between you, and you hate that your pain is hurting someone you love, someone who, really, could not be more removed from the situation if they tried. You're not sorry for what you did, but you are sorry for what it's doing to you now and you think apologizing to me will bring us some kind of closure and then it all ends." Eli's knees felt shaky, and it was difficult to breathe - the tears brimming in her eyes when she finally looked up at him made his heart sink. He opened his mouth to speak, but not even a stutter came out. "It's all the same for me, Eli."

It felt like hours that they stared at each other, tears crawling down Clare's face and Eli's entire body numb.

"I'm so angry all of the time." Her words came out as a chocked sob, and Eli felt compelled to lower himself onto the seat next to her. He was worried when she regarded his new position warily, but she didn't protest.

"I've been bitter for ten years, because of what happened... because of you, and why wouldn't I be?" Eli swallowed a lump in his throat. "I've been running away for two years because Julia died, and I'm not proud but I can... I can make sense of that. But for the past few months, I've just been so mad... Julia and I were friends for so long, before and after you were around, and there's so much of her that has nothing to do with you at all... But you," she looked at him, the eye contact making her words seem even more sincere, "Everything about you should be something about Julia. So it makes me angry, so incredibly pissed off - at you, and myself, and everyone else in the world - that for the past few months... it's you that I can't stop thinking about, and she barely crosses my mind."

Clare's body racked with violent sobs, and she covered her face with her hands. Eli stretched a hand out to place on her shoulder, but she recoiled instantly, moving to the other end of the couch where he couldn't reach her. "You can't do that, you can't try being a good guy. I need to hate you, or else I'm going to hate myself. Eli, please." Her eyes were wide and pleading, and Eli could hardly fathom how terrified she was. He had come over here because the feud between them was slowly destroying his life, and now she had him wanting to be okay with that for her own sake.

"Clare, I can't do that. I can't be an active part in this at all, I need this to be over." He frowned at her, wishing that it weren't so complicated.

"Please," she began to beg, gripping her hands in her hair and clenching her eyes shut. Eli breathed shakily.

"No." His voice was firm, and Clare opened her eyes.

"But..."

"I can't try to be the guy that you loathe, because whoever he is... he's not someone I've ever tried to be, ever wanted to be. This isn't just about you and me, Clare, it's hurting Imogen, and Jake... Look, you have to believe that I want nothing less than to hurt you, but-"

"What a shame, it seems to be the only thing you're good at." Eli closed his open mouth, frowning again at the annoyance that had sneaked into Clare's tone within an instant.

"What?"

"Failed writer, failed boyfriend... promised not to fight with me, but broke that one, too - apparently fucking up my life is the only hobby you have any success with."

"Don't do this again." Clare glared at him through her tears.

"Like this is all my fault. This started with you, Eli." Clare stood up, throwing her arms to her sides and narrowing her eyes at him. "And then you kept it going! This could have been over a long time ago, seconds after it damn well began, if not for you." Eli narrowed his eyes back at her, gripping desperately to keep this situation vaguely calm.

"That's... that's entirely subjective, Clare. Just because I didn't cave to your opinion, doesn't mean it's my fault. We could have done things my way and we'd be in-"

"You wrote a fucking book about it, Eli!"

"I what?" Clare seethed, and Eli raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Your book, Eli, you're trying to tell me that was an accident?" Eli almost laughed.

"You're kidding, right? It was barely an allusion! It made up, what, 4 paragraphs of the entire story? No body would have even made the connection!" Clare crossed her arms over her chest.

"Julia would have."

"You... you mean you never even told her?" Eli was beyond surprised, and if she confirmed his question, he wasn't even sure what this meant for them, or the situation. It changed everything.

"No, I never told her! You left, Eli, what reason was there for me to dwell on it? Things got complicated, so you figured you'd rather leave me to deal with it alone so you could follow some stupid band around the country. You weren't around, so why was I supposed to let you ruin my friendship with the most important person in my life?"

Eli shot to his feet, his chest inches from Clare as he glared down at her. "You know why I left, Clare." His tone was suddenly harsh. Clare, unaccustomed to any kind of defense from him, faltered a moment.

"What I know, Eli," she continued strongly, "Is what you tell yourself to justify it. Or used to, since it seems these days you'd rather blame me."

"Right," Eli countered, throwing his hands in the air and laughing bitterly, "I forgot; perfect Saint Clare Edwards, holier-than-thou princess if ever there was one, can do no wrong. You know what the saddest thing about Jamie's death is, Clare?" His mockingly light tone was suddenly gone, and his darkened eyes were intimidatingly close to her face, his expression cold and hateful.

"Don't," she spit out, eyes shut tightly.

"It's that she had to die before finding out that her so-called 'best friend' was probably the worst friend anyone could ever have."

Clare could have made a multitude of decisions at that moment; she could have laughed to piss him off, argued to prove him wrong, screamed to shut him up. Instead, she balled up her tiny fist and threw it into his face because the only thing she wanted to do was hurt him in a way he couldn't deflect.

"You're a fucking coward," she whispered, nursing her throbbing knuckles in the other hand, seemingly unfazed by the fact that, for the first time in her life, she had hit another human being. Eli, who had stumbled a few steps backwards from the shock of it all, rubbed a hand over his jaw.

"Yeah, well, you're a pretentious bitch." He swiftly turned and took the few steps to the door. "And you punch like a girl." Eli slammed the door shut behind him, while Clare fell to her knees and continued to sob.