Disclaimer: If you recognise it, I don't own it.
AN: Thanks for the reviews!
7
By the time she's stopped crying, safe in Nathan's arms, Claire's come to a decision. This has to be the last breakdown, because she needs to be strong now. Claire needs to protect the people she loves, and there's only one way she can think of that – to twist the words of her Ethics teacher – provides the greatest amount of protection to the largest number of loved ones.
She can survive a nuclear explosion. Of course she can do this.
But then Claire remembers someone handing her a gun.
She shakes the thought off, taking a deep, reasonably steady breath. "I'm sorry, Nathan."
He clearly misses her decisive tone. "It's going to be okay, I promise. I do. I'll do all the talking, I'll tell him how you met . . . he's going to understand."
Claire sits up and scoots down from Nathan on the seat, wiping at her eyes as she settles herself, far enough from him to say her next line. "You can't see him yet. If the Company didn't follow you here they're sure as hell gonna be staking out your place, and I know that's where you want to take him – but believe me, he's safer at my house so far. We don't think anyone's noticed anything yet, we're still a Stepford family. But I promise, I'll bring him to you as soon as I can."
It's all scripted now – not the exact words, but the shape of the plan is there, waiting for her to step in and say her lines.
They conduct a brief, whispered argument, which Claire's script wins.
She leaves Nathan at the diner. Alone again.
But calling him was a stupid mistake, she knew it when she called and she now knows it so much better, now that the Plan To Save Us All is in effect.
The plan doesn't make her feel any better about leaving her bio-dad a bearded, drunken, frustrated mess. The Plan hurts already.
And it's going to get worse.
Claire discovers how much worse when she comes back into the house and finds Peter standing in the office, arms folded. "Guess you 'can't tell me' what that was about."
The secrecy's getting to him; he's irritable a lot of the time now.
"It was your brother," Claire says.
"You met with my brother?" His expression changes instantly. "Where is he? What did he say?"
"Actually, he had to go back where he came from. He wanted to take you with him, it's just that his apartment's being watched, you know – the same people who are watching us here."
Peter's starting to look crestfallen, so she adds, "He wants to see you as soon as he can. I talked to him about you, and he said," risky, this step is so risky, "He said I should tell you the thing. The reason, you know, that we – that we don't kiss."
His ears prick up at this, and for a moment she can see the thought of Nathan takes the backseat in his mind. Is it a bad reason? A good one? A totally final, no-coming-back-from-this one? She can tell he's wild to know.
Claire answers his expression. "I'm sixteen," she says, with what she hopes is the perfect inflection – yes this is it, a terrible thing, total dealbreaker, please don't hate me.
After that Peter follows the script, saying he thought she was a senior, that she was seventeen at least, that he's so sorry, and how could she ever think he would hate her?
Hearing that Claire can't go on, can't seem to find her dialogue.
But then he looks at her in that way, and she remembers all the reasons she has for saying, sharply, "Wait, are you thinking – I don't even know what you're thinking. I'm sixteen, Peter; did you lose the part of your brain that tells you that is a very bad thing?"
"I know you, Claire. I knew you when I didn't know my own name. I know you're something to me, and I don't want to be creepy or anything, but I knew from the moment I saw you you were mine. That you belonged to me somehow, with me. I teleported halfway across the world, had no idea what I was doing or where I was going, and I came to you. It's destiny."
The simple conviction in Peter's eyes sways her, just like always. Just like every time he's told her about destiny, and she's believed him.
It makes it harder to do what she has to do now. Claire turns away, makes her voice high and sceptical. "Destiny? Is that what you call sleeping with an underage girl in her parents' house? We were friends. I made a mistake. And you call it destiny?"
The sarcasm in her voice has stung him, she can tell by the silence.
Then Peter's voice returns, purposefully casual. "A mistake? You were just so glad I was alive, you let me fuck you?"
The crudity hits Claire, insults her, makes her cry out No in her mind, but only in her mind because her very next thought is, Save him.
Peter grabs her wrist and drags her around to face him. He's angry, and his hand is raising bruises. "That's not all it was, you know it."
"I'm sixteen!" Claire protests. "I have a life, and it doesn't include any psycho destiny talk! I'm really sorry I did that to you. I am."
She wrenches her arm out of his grip. They both watch the bruises vanish.
"But I don't think of you that way, Peter." Claire says, defiantly meeting his gaze.
It's the coup de grace, the let's-be-friends, the please-don't-talk-to-me-on-the-bus-anymore. Peter takes it like a shot to the heart.
But she goes upstairs, and doesn't look back.