Wow. It's been over two months since I updated this story... I'm sorry. And I'm sorry that I have to say I'm sorry every time I post a chapter...
Anyway, thank you everyone for the reviews and follows! Lollll I love you guys :D Thanks for putting up with my lack of updating.
Also, since I listen to music all the time, the song that I listened to obsessively while I wrote the first chapter of this story was "My Blood" by Ellie Goulding.
And finally, disclaimer - I don't own anything pertaining to Final Fantasy XIII-2.
Chapter Two: Solitude
"Let go of me," Claire snapped and jerked away from her commanding officer's grasp.
At first she thought she had escaped, as he made no move to reclaim his hold on her arm, but a second later she found herself pinned against the wall, his face inches away from hers. Again.
"I am your superior," he hissed. "I give the orders. You keep quiet."
He released her and stalked off toward the lobby. Claire rolled her eyes behind his back.
General Ballad led her through the lobby and down one of the hallways that split off from it. He looked over his shoulder at her once, but other than that he made no contact with her, no effort to make sure she followed. She wondered if he really trusted her enough not to reclaim the grip he'd had on her arm just moments ago. Or maybe it was only that he trusted she was afraid enough of what he might do if she didn't follow.
The hallway began to look darker and darker as Claire walked down it. In the lobby, the light had been nearly blinding; here, at the end of the hallway, she had to squint if she wanted to see General Ballad's silhouette in front of her. The walls felt closer, as though they had begun to close in around them. The narrow metal door at the very end of this ordeal of a hallway looked half the size of a normal door, and Claire doubted she would even be able to fit through it.
General Ballad unlocked the door and held it open for her. "This is for defying me earlier this morning, during training," he told her. "I might remind you before you go inside that you are never to talk back to an officer. You are to always follow orders. You are a soldier. A trainee, at that. This is your reward for such rash behavior."
She opened her mouth to reply—at least a "yes, sir"—but he put a hand roughly between her shoulder blades and shoved her toward the door. She stumbled into the small, dark space, and he closed the door behind her.
Claire blinked. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, but the tiny crawl space lacked even the tiniest sliver of light. She realized that in order to fit through the door, she'd had to duck, and she now stood in a half-crouch, her knees slightly bent. She straightened and immediately hit her head on the ceiling, biting back a cry at the strike of pain. She lowered herself into a sitting position.
The room wasn't even big enough to be a closet, Claire discovered as she felt her way around. Anyone bigger than her would have felt like a sardine. Hell, she felt like a sardine. She couldn't even stretch her arms out to her sides; the cold walls met her hands about a foot away from her face. The walls and floors, made of stone, felt clammy and moist, making her shiver.
She wondered if the commanding officers punished everyone this way, or just General Ballad. Probably just him. She couldn't imagine this being a normal punishment for talking back to an officer, especially for the first time. She felt like these walls had begun to close in on her too, creeping steadily toward her, closing the distance. She should have just gotten off with a slap on the wrist, she reasoned. Not death in this cold stone box.
Claire began to count off the seconds to herself. Not knowing how many minutes had passed before now, she began at one. She let the numbers trail on in her head, erasing the disturbing thoughts she was beginning to have.
She had reached seven minutes when she heard a voice call out, "Time," and saw the dim light seep into the cell as General Ballad opened the door. She squinted, blinked, stared out at him. She half expected him to offer her a hand or something, but instead he just stood outside the door, arms crossed. Claire crawled out of the cell and pushed herself up to her feet. Spending barely fifteen minutes in the room had made her legs stiff; she didn't dare try to imagine how it would feel to be locked inside for an hour, or two, or more.
"How did that feel?" General Ballad asked her. "Does it make you want to speak impolitely to me again?"
She knew what she was supposed to say. "No, sir." But what she really wanted to do was tell him he was an ass and she was going to lock him in that cell herself until he died of claustrophobia.
"Good," he said. "Then, I will escort you back to your dormitory."
Claire bit back a cough. After all that, he was going to play the gentleman. Of course. She managed to keep silent as she followed him back down the dim hallway.
They turned and walked outside in the direction of the dormitories again, but this time General Ballad did not stop her from entering hers. He stopped before the transportation path leading up to the building and said, "Here you are, Claire Farron. Good night."
"Good night," she echoed through her teeth. She hated the way he said her name. He made it sound like an illness, and then he just had to tack on that "Good night" at the end—like they were old friends, or something. It only made her want to punch his smirking face even more.
Claire found Fang waiting for her in the dormitory's common room. Several of the others in their squad had gathered together in the center of the room, and it sounded to Claire like they were playing a game. Fang stood near the doorway, grinning, watching the hallway and the game at the same time. When she noticed Claire, she offered her a small wave.
"There you are, Claire," Fang greeted her. "Hey, we're playing truth or dare. You wanna join?"
"Truth or dare?" Claire echoed. She remembered games of truth or dare from back home. None of those games had ended well.
"Yeah, of course. First week game. We gotta get to know each other somehow, right?" Fang answered.
"Right," Claire muttered. Somehow she didn't think a game of truth or dare was the best way to get to know her squad members. She didn't say so.
"Fang!" someone shouted out from the common room. "In here!"
"Come on," Fang said excitedly, and dragged Claire after her into the next room.
Inside, a group of soldiers sat in a circle. They had pulled several chairs and couches into the shape so that they could face each other, and they had set a lamp in the center so that most of the room, save for their circle, was thrown into darkness. When Claire and Fang entered, their faces, lit by the lamplight, turned toward them, and Claire shrank back toward the door frame, unused to the attention.
"Who's this again?" someone asked.
"This is Claire," Fang reminded them.
"You dumbass, of course it's Claire," a voice said, probably to the person who had asked her name. The rest of the room exploded into chatter, reminding each other of the beating Claire had taken after she'd talked back to General Ballad. To her surprise, most of them sounded pleased, even approving, of her stunt.
"Okay, okay," the guy sitting at the head of the group said. He had brown hair and blue eyes. "Claire. Truth or dare?"
Claire closed her eyes. She hated games like this. Truth might make her sound like a wimp, but the question might be something she'd rather die than answer. And dare would definitely help her reputation, but she had almost no doubt it would be something she didn't want to do. Damned if she did, damned if she didn't.
"Dare," she sighed. A hiss of excitement spread through the room, and everyone turned to face the brown-haired guy.
"Okay…" he said, thinking a minute. "How about this. Go into General Ballad's office and steal his headband."
Claire rolled her eyes. "Do you want me dead?" she asked. A hush fell over the room.
"I'll do it," she clarified. "But he's going to have it out for me when this is over." The chatter started up again, and Claire led the way out of the room.
The brown-haired guy jogged up to her. "Hey, I'm Noel," he said, slowing to a walk to catch his breath. "Do you know the way to General Ballad's office, or do you want a hand, Claire?"
"Well, I'm glad to say I've never been to his office, so I'll let you take the lead," Claire answered.
They walked down the path to the main building and the lobby, and Noel opened the door, allowing them inside. They crossed the lobby and walked up the stairs to the second level, where they emerged into a dark hallway housing several doors on either side. Noel walked until he found the door labeled "Ballad", and there he stopped. The group slowly came to a stop around them.
Noel tapped into the keypad next to the door, entering a few numbers. The screen flashed, and the door slid open. Claire stared at him.
"How did you do that?" she asked.
Noel shrugged a shoulder and grinned. "Oh, I have some experience with breaking into locked rooms."
"Obviously," Claire answered. "You'd think they wouldn't want to draft someone with a criminal record."
"I didn't say I had a record," Noel protested. "Maybe the military taught me."
"And maybe they didn't," Claire countered, striding past him into General Ballad's office.
Noel made a sound like he wanted to continue the argument, but he stopped himself, stepping back across the threshold into the hallway.
None of the others followed Claire into General Ballad's office. She felt conspicuous, walking alone in the dark room, and she got so caught up in her self-consciousness that she almost ran straight into his desk.
Which was where he had left his headband.
Claire picked it up, crushing it into her fist, and raced back out the door to rejoin her squad. When she reached them, Noel looked down at her hand. "Did you get it?" he asked, and she opened her palm to show him the purple ribbon.
"Great. Now let's run like hell." He took off down the hallway, and the rest of the group followed, whispering and laughing like little kids.
Claire followed the group back into their dormitory's common room, and as they all took their seats in the circle once again, she held up General Ballad's headband like some sort of capture-the-flag trophy. The rest of the group began to applaud. Claire found herself blushing, and she sat down.
"You know what I'd say? I'd say this is revenge," Fang said, nudging Claire with her elbow.
"Revenge," Claire agreed, staring at the swatch of purple cloth.
"Claire!" Noel called out from the other side of the room. "Since you just completed that dare, it's your turn to ask someone else."
Someone tossed him a bottle and he took a drink before handing it to Claire. She wiped the rim with her thumb, took a sip, and looked around the room. She felt a twinge of embarrassment as she realized that she didn't know anyone's name.
"Fang," she decided with a grin. "Truth or dare?"
After they ended the game for the night and began to head back to their rooms, Claire realized that she still had General Ballad's headband. She looked around for Noel, hoping to ask him what to do with it, but he had already disappeared. Reluctantly, she decided that the best place for it would probably be in her dorm room, at least until she could somehow sneak back into General Ballad's office and return it to him. She wrapped it up in her fist again and shrugged. Her head felt a little fuzzy, and she couldn't bring herself to care much about anything.
"Claire," Fang shouted from the foot of the stairs. "Come on."
With a sigh, Claire began the trek up the stairs to her room, the cloth peeking ever so slightly through her fingers.