RE: Inclination
Dinner with Chris had done two things. One, it had reminded her what other examples of manliness there were to compare things to. Two, it had estranged her from Robert with a distance even further than there had been before. Well, she thought, she'd have to worry about that some other time. She had better things to worry about. The committee meetings were wrapping up, and she would have to be focused enough to make a proper report to Director Stuart about the way that the meetings had gone, and what the six-month action plan on the follow-up would be. She started to list things off in her head, but then decided it would be a better idea to take out paper and actually write it down. She was so agitated she might forget what she was trying to remember so hard.
The cab they were seated in was eerie silent. Robert was sulking.
The noise of her pen on the small pad she'd taken out of her planner was audible. The cab had a quiet engine, but it was a bit ridiculous. This was never a good way for him to begin the day. It just made him less tractable in the meetings. "Robert," she started.
"Yes, Claire?" he asked. His words were very formal.
She took an inward breath, poising herself for his agitation. Nothing she did seemed to make it better, but then after the way he'd acted around Chris, so long as he didn't do anything to compromise the meetings, she couldn't care if he went mute. "Is there something you'd like to talk about?"
"Your brother's a dick," Robert said, looking out the window. The childishness was apparently set for the day. "If he's your brother."
"Oh, Chris is my brother." Claire stared at him. "And of course he's a dick. He's military, and he doesn't like you."
"Why?" Robert snapped, turning back to her. "What did I do to him?"
Claire tipped her head to the side a little. What was with this? Claire didn't feel like she was being her usual self. Robert was making her someone else… someone unfamiliar…. "I'm his little sister. His baby sister, if the situations were reversed, would you act any different?"
Robert's dark eyes narrowed and he frowned, turning back to the window. "Plus…" he trailed off into a mumble.
"I dressed up, I know." He looked at her again. It was so accusing. Granted, she had wanted to call Leon that night, but she hadn't. There was nothing to accuse her for. "Robert you can either be with me, or you can be angry. But I'm not going to bother with you if you're going to just be angry at me all the time."
He blinked at that. Oh, right. Long-suffering, mothering Claire was never the one to be finished first. Ha. That was a joke. Maybe it was just that she'd spent too long dating TerraSave activist types. No one at the organization (or at least no one that didn't live in her building, and there were a few who did) knew that she liked to wear leather jackets and ride motorcycles. Especially to cool down.
Robert had never even been to her apartment. It was always more convenient to stay at his place in New York.
It made her a little sick to think about the person she was letting herself pretend to be. She frowned at herself. No, she reminded herself, it wasn't necessary to change like that. Having a cause didn't mean becoming someone else. None of her previous causes had done that. If anything the work she did with the Anti-Umbrella Movement had been just the opposite. She had been the most herself while working with the team. Afterwards… hell, during the Anti-Umbrella thing, it was just too easy to lead a double life about that sort of thing. She'd done it well. She'd had to when she was finishing off college and Umbrella at the same time. It hadn't helped her grades in some classes that she spent two springs infiltrating things and being shot at, but she'd managed. She'd graduated, hadn't she? Claire was less disgusted with herself when she realized that. It was a cause she was working for. It was a choice she had made.
The meeting that day went amiably well.
Robert was pensive rather than abrasive, and the points they were discussing were really just wrap-up formalities. Setting up future meetings, assigning dates for the future reporting that would have to be done. Claire was glad that her part in this situation would end with the set-up. She didn't want to be the person that was responsible for reviewing the reams of paper that would undoubtedly come from the reporting. Although she supposed that they could get computers to analyze the data.
If it was entered properly.
The pair of them headed out of the building together, and the mood seemed… well she couldn't call it relaxed, but it definitely wasn't on red-level alert as it had been previously. Robert's elbow was half a foot from hers, and it actually felt nice. He was moving like a normal human being again. He always did, in sight of others and at their meetings.
He let out a groaning sigh, and there it was again. The breeze across the parking lot swirled his cologne at her, and that made her stomach tighten in on itself. Why did it have to smell like that? Claire pressed her lips together and looked in her purse for her chapstick. It was better, as they were waiting on the next available taxi, than looking at him as he let go of his business mode and turned into the zombie.
"Claire, maybe we need some time…"
Not alone, she chanted in her head. Please, don't suggest some ill-fated camping trip in which you spend the whole time complaining about the bugs or some other retarded getaway.
"What you said this morning… it was hurtful. And I need a little time to think."
"Alright," Claire said. A taxi pulled up for them. Robert moved towards it. "Let's start with this. You take this one, I'll get the next."
He was halfway in the cab, but he stopped, turning to look at her incredulously. "Claire, it's getting dark out. You take this one."
"I've had worse, Rob," she said. "Or didn't you read my file?"
He looked to the side.
"You did." She narrowed her eyes a little. Was that where the change in Robert's demeanor had come from? "You read my personnel file, didn't you?"
Robert was silent for a moment, and the pause annoyed the cab driver into speaking up. "You getting in?"
"In a second," Robert said in annoyance. He turned his dark eyes on Claire. "Look it's not like you're very forthcoming about things. How else am I supposed to get to know you?"
"By asking," Claire said with a frown.
"Right," Rob replied, shaking his head. "Your brother may be a burly military type, but honestly you're harder to talk to."
"Were you more scared of talking to me before you read it, or after?" Claire asked. She didn't wait for his answer. She turned and walked off. She felt betrayed by him. Maybe she was impossible. Or maybe Robert was just wrong for her.
Claire didn't have a problem talking to Chris, or Leon. Granted she'd known both of them for longer than she'd ever heard of Robert Martin. How far was the hotel from there? She wondered as she took a few steps in the direction of the Peace Monument. She looked up at it for a moment before stepping into the crosswalk that lead in the direction of the Grant Monument.
There were a lot of fucking monuments in Washington, she thought to herself as she headed over towards the reflecting pool. The area was tainted with her memories of the last time she'd been there, though. She couldn't find anything worth thinking about in the bluish green of the water. Continuing, she headed out past it. There was a street that she hadn't ever crossed, and she crossed it.
Surprisingly enough, she found herself at the Botanical Gardens. They were closing for the evening, but there was a taxi stand waiting for her there.
Claire dug her wallet out of her purse and her phone fell to the ground. She collected it before crossing to a taxi that the driver opened the door for her to. Normally she avoided things like that, but the man looked nice enough, and she figured sometimes karma had to pay her back for all the shit it put her through. This guy would be nice, and she'd make it back to the hotel.
"Where to, Miss?" the man asked.
"Washington Plaza," she replied, settling in the seat. She dusted off her phone, looking at it. There was a message from Chris, which she ignored. The missed calls menu came up, showing her outgoing calls as well.
She'd tried to call Leon yesterday.
Hurtful, right. She was hurtful. Cryptic, impossible to understand. She'd heard it before. She could hear Chris's chiding tease now. 'That's what you get for dating normal boys.' Her brother said things like that a lot, but she didn't understand what he supposedly knew that was different from what she knew.
Leon wouldn't say things like that… and it would be good to hear his voice.