[ It's a nice way of putting it. Reacting. There's a certain level of responsibility inherent and the satisfaction of having done anything at all, and Claire gets it. He isn't the only one in the room who has ever reacted, even if the circumstances aren't on the same playing field or remotely the same whatsoever, even if she ultimately regretted some of the terrible things that she did and watched happen. That isn't the bit that catches her up.
Of course it was always going to be the last piece of what he's said, and of course she's always known that there are things about himself that she has no conception of and things she's never asked about and things that she has no real right knowing. That's not going to stop her, not when approaching trains never have. She's known from the beginning that he isn't all roses and sunshine and that maybe the corners no one looks into with him are darker than anyone really expects. Claire stopped being afraid of monsters in the closet the moment one of them showed up outside of her bedroom door. ]
Those are pretty serious charges to level against someone.
[ No qualifiers, no 'even ifs.' Claire knows what it's like to accuse someone of those things and mean it. She keeps very still, looking at him directly, saying what she does very carefully. She doesn't want to ask if it's true - coming right out and saying it seems so indelicate and offensive - but it's hard to be inquisitive without sounding like she's being judgmental. ]
It doesn't matter if it's true or not. [ It is true and it isn't. Severus doesn't know how to answer, or explain, or even begin to articulate how he feels. It's a mess and the biggest tangled web he's ever been caught in. Which says something, as he's been in several. ] I did things in the war that no one else could have done. Or would have, whether or not they were capable.
[ Severus is resting with his elbows on his knees and his posture slouched. Tired. He looks at her, plain. This is unavoidable. ]
He has no idea. But he believes, and people believe him.
[ No one is going to rush to Severus's defense. He hasn't exactly been kind to everyone and, no matter how many good things he's done, superficial attitude will always trump actions. He knows this. ]
I'd just like to be left alone. Instead I have to solve all their problems and carry all the blame for it anyway--[ he cuts himself off and looks away. He's not going to complain, not to her. Not when she's been kind to him and all he's done in return is be a pain in the ass and then admit all this. ]
[ Well, no, it does matter. She's left feeling uncomfortable by his non-answer, and Claire can't determine whether or not it's a result of not knowing for sure if what he's been accused of has a grain of truth or if she's uncomfortable by the fact that she's not as uncomfortable as she should be. Maybe ignorance is bliss. Maybe it's stage one denial, and she doesn't want to consider the option that the only person she's even moderately comfortable around on this ship might be someone not altogether sound.
It's a precarious position, because no matter which way she looks at it, she finds that it matters substantially less than it might have a couple of years ago. She just doesn't want to find them on opposing sides of a line drawn somewhere, which would be more devastating than to find out those accusations were even half true.
(Somewhere in the back of her mind she knows they probably are, just as much as she recognizes that you can't always reconcile deeds done with intentions behind them. No good deed, and all that. It's something she'll have to cross when she comes to it.)]
Okay. [ She's quiet for a while preceding that and following it, just trying to find her balance and determine what to say next. ] Well. I don't have any reason to believe him. I don't know him or what he's experienced or what he's done. I don't know you, either, not really, but I'm trying. Just to get some kind of an idea. Nothing's black and white, and I get that. People do what they have to do whether they want to or not. It's just the way things work out. Maybe one day Sirius will figure it out, and you'll get the peace of mind you're looking for.
[ Maybe. But there's always something else and then something else and then something else. ]
[ There. Fuck it. Sirius has told half the ship that Severus is pretending to have defected 'or something', there's absolutely no reason for him to continue to hide it. Except for how much it feels like shoving hot iron splinters under his fingernails, except for the fact that if Voldemort ever arrives he'll be executed and the rest of them will be murdered, except for everything.
He hates saying it.
Stilted and difficult-sounding he continues, ]
You've been very kind to me. It's unwarranted. But thank you.
[ Her responses are rife with awkward silences and prolonged pauses, and it's not because she can't believe what she's being told or because she doesn't appreciate knowing. It's just difficult to digest, especially when taken in all at once. In some way it feels like some cosmic scale has been tipped back into balance, following her previous revelation, and Claire is sure that's why he says it at all: not necessarily because he owes her to keep the sides even but because knowing something that monumental about her in some way makes her a substantial candidate for confidentiality. Nothing else really occurs to her. Definitely not that it might as well be up and coming public knowledge. Certainly not because he just wants to.
And what do you even actually say to that? Claire thinks about hitting him with something similar to what he said to her but it doesn't fit, and she doesn't have a sandwich to fiddle with anyway. In the end, she doesn't say anything. Just accepts it. Cosmic balance. ]
It's not unwarranted. I wouldn't be kind to you if I didn't think that you deserved it, if I didn't keep thinking that you deserved it.
[ She can at least be sure about it when she says that. ]
[ Just like he doesn't know how to explain whether or not he's actually a bigoted murderer and a terrorist, he doesn't know if he wanted to tell her or not. He didn't not want to tell her, but he didn't want to tell anyone or have it be an issue. But what he wants has never mattered.
She says that and for a very brief moment Severus looks like someone threw water in his face. Startled and a little confused and maybe even hurt but it's gone, quicker than blinking.
What the fuck does he say. I don't. Stop it. You don't have to. I don't believe you. Maybe he should do something. Like leave. Or kiss her.
Or leave. Definitely leave. ]
I'm going to go back to the lab and work for a while. I can't go to sleep.
[ One day the question is going to come up. Are you? Are you any of these things? And Claire knows she's going to say it out of spite or doubt or some provocation she doesn't have the foresight to be aware of now. She only catches his expression because she's looking at him, and she's brushing her hair out of her face to pretend that she didn't and only remembers halfway through it that her hair isn't actually in her face. ]
You shouldn't -
[ What, exactly?
Or you could stop running away from me, she thinks but somehow can't quite find the conviction or courage to say. For all the barrels of guns she's stared right into and every other dangerous thing that has been thrown her way, Claire still can't manage to wrap her head around the idea of being rejected in any capacity. She doesn't even know what that means in the context of all of this - this being what, exactly, she's not sure of, just that it's some nebulous thing. 'Friends' isn't even a term she's positive she can use to qualify their relationship, though she thinks it approaches that more and more every day.
Against the contrast of what he's just told her, it seems so stupid and silly. ]
Do you know how to play poker? Real poker. Not magic poker or whatever your version is.
[ Of course it matters if a person is a bigot or a murderer or a terrorist, but it doesn't matter in Severus's case anymore; whether he is or he isn't his life is going to go the same way. It's going to end shortly and it's going to be miserable the entire rest of the way. An end of his own doing. He's going to treat people the same way whether he is or he isn't - he hates everyone now and everyone, for the most part, hates him. Again, an end of his own doing. And a rightful one at that.
He looks at her. He thinks that this must be a little like a woman walking into a bar and finding the meanest, biggest, most frightening man possible to stay the night with so that everyone else will leave her be. Is that a flattering thought? Severus has no idea. He can't imagine why Claire does this. Is doing this.
Severus isn't the sort of person to force someone away from him simply for their own good, but it's only because he's never had to. He's lost. ]
[ She says it even as she's getting up, coming around the head of her bunk to the bureau. Not having much by way of worldly possessions at this point, one of the drawers inside has become storage space for the little items that she procures. Most of them are things that Spike manages to find for her, however he manages. Claire still hasn't quite processed the notion that he's in some kind of relationship with her uncle. As her fingers ghost over the deck - all old and worn and bent and faded, she has no idea where they came from, only that they're helpful in passing downtime - Claire spares one casual thought that maybe she should address that with Peter at some point and then dismisses it. Not her priority at the moment.
The cards tap out into her fingers, and Claire recognizes that there isn't much playing room, but it would be doable. ]
I could teach you, if you wanted. It might be more fun than being down in the lab.
[ She doesn't know if concussive people should actually attempt card games but they also probably should not attempt lab work more. Plus, there is one more thing that she wants to say, and it's just a matter of gathering the bluster necessary to say it against the backdrop of what she has just learned. ]
[ He's quieter with that than usual. Severus is feeling strangely defensive. He would really like to leave but he also doesn't want to throw her kindness back in her face, because he really has appreciated it even when he's been bothered by it. He appreciates it when she's angry at him, too, because it never feels entitled; that, he thinks, is why he ends up as mad as he does at Ilde. But not at Claire. ]
How are you about-- Nathan?
[ Severus hasn't gotten up and left yet. Despite his mild protest, he's apparently giving her tentative permission to carry on with this card thing. For now. ]
[ His question catches her off-guard, however much it shouldn't. She's got the cards out of the deck and has sat back down on the edge of the cot to shuffle them. When that doesn't work as well as she'd like, she slips off the side and sits with her legs crossed in front of her, on the floor. She doesn't look up at him when she answers, only shrugs. ]
It is what it is. I've resigned myself to the fact that our schedules are never exactly going to mesh in that respect. [ Claire knows she should be more concerned about it - and maybe elaborate a little more - but she feels oddly calm about the whole thing. Writing it off, maybe, she doesn't know. Or trying to be the sturdy one when she knows Peter is predisposed to fall apart over his brother. Small fingers crowd the cards and shuffle them, and Claire chews the inside of her lip. ] We buried him, back home. This doesn't seem as serious in comparison. I don't know why.
[ Probably because Sylar has been wearing his face this time around. ]
Here, [ is a soft note in the midst of card and people shuffling. He moves back on the cot and sits cross-legged on one end of it, facing the other side, so she can sit opposite. Something is vaguely weird to him about her sitting effectively at his feet. This is easier anyway.
Nathan Petrelli is dead is something he didn't know despite all the man's talking, and he doesn't really feel anything about it. Severus will be dead before he's 40 and he expected to go sooner; being dead is a state he's unafraid of, but one he contemplates in the abstract quite often. What's more of interest is Claire's reaction to it, but she seems like she's already mourned. ]
The mechanics of it are surreal enough to seem.. distant.
[ Pods full of goo.
(He's waiting for her to decide she doesn't want a bigoted murderer terrorist in her room.) ]
[ Nonplussed by bigoted murder terrorists for the moment - it will seem terrible in retrospect - Claire climbs up across from him, a practiced distance between them: close enough that she can reach over and touch the cards she begins dealing out to correct him or make a suggestion; far enough away to not be encroaching. The darkness underneath his eyes seems more pronounced from this angle, and she finds herself wishing she had some better way to help. Peter, she thinks, will deserve some sort of gift basket. ]
Maybe. [ Don't tell, she wants to say, knowing that she doesn't need to and not knowing why she feels the urge in the first place. ] The circumstances of it were so...
[ She doesn't have a word for it. Oddly enough it had been easier and more natural to remember him fondly once she was mired in that grief, to laugh about conversations - ones they've yet to have - and inside jokes, from Mexico to lunches. She's sure there's some poetical sort of symmetry there, considering her ability and her relationship with death, but that's a term paper she not prepared to write. ]
Everything else just kind of pales in comparison. I don't know if he knows. I don't know how to even begin bringing it up. [ Pause. ] He deserves a nap, anyway.
[ Yes, it's a crude way of saying your dad is in a coma but hey. ]
[ He probably knows. That would be Severus's guess, anyway, or maybe his hope that if he were in the same situation, he'd know. He can't imagine not having gotten a feel of it from Harry, even if it was never directly spoken of.
Tenses. They're funny.
Severus sits quietly and lets her set up the cards. He feels dehydrated, like his brain is pulling away from his skull, but he knows he just needs to sit still for a while. He won't forget what he told her or that they're both pretending to ignore it now, but he'll make the effort. If only because he can't think of a way to leave that he's satisfied with. ]
Everyone always wants to know the future, but it never ends up being anything anyone wants to hear.
[ If pressed, she might insist that she isn't ignoring it. As she sets up the cards, there are a million and five questions running through her mind at speeds so great she can't even catch the edge of one of them with her fingertips. Claire recognizes that maybe she doesn't have to be polite, maybe a little imprudence is warranted given the circumstances of his delivery. But he didn't have to tell her, and he didn't pass out or ask to see it when she told him about the whole healing thing. In her mind, she's offering him as wide a berth as he offered her.
She spends a couple of moments directing him to do this or that with his cards, craning her neck to look at his hand, offering him instructions. It feels nice to know something that he doesn't, considering the size of his normally unconcussed brain, but Claire doesn't find herself smiling. The air in the room is still too full of unfinished thoughts and unasked questions. Playing a hand, without looking up at him: ]
How long did you - were you - [ Claire looks up at him from her hunched over position on the cot, elbows balanced on her knees, and glances at the circles under his eyes and the exhausted patchwork of his bones knitted together under his skin and stops herself. ] Never mind. I want to say something to you.
[ Severus has been patient and (somewhat) attentive, but very quiet, during the card lesson. His mind is only half on it, and while half his mind is still pretty good, it's clear he's ... distant. Somewhere. Now, when she breaks off, he isn't surprised. But he's still patient.
He doesn't say anything and just watches her, cards on the thin hotel sheet beneath them, fingers barely touching their surface.
[ She's had this part in her head for a while, but her delivery holds less of the punch than she had imagined when it first crept into her brain, laying there with angry and frustrated intent, some part of it hurt and offended and left wondering if giving a shit about anyone was actually worth the headache. Even if the initial flare in her has cooled substantially - there are more important and bigger pieces on the table, now - Claire still feels like it would be doing the both of them a disservice not to bring it up at all. ]
That whole thing, before, when you asked me if Peter was working and wouldn't tell me why you wanted to know. [ Claire pauses like there's some kind of need for clarification. Really, it's just an opportunity for her to gather her cards, so to speak. ] Look, I'm not totally sure if we're friends or what. I feel like I never really am, even when I think I am, but I kind of, you know, suck at that. Sometimes. So. But that whole thing, you can't just do that. Not with me. It's not fair. I know there probably wasn't a lot of time. I can see that in retrospect. Just - you can. It would mean a lot if you didn't, in the future. [ She plays a card and stares down at it. ] Your turn.
[ Wheels turn in his head. His first instinct is to snap at her, but he's too tired for it and he knows better than to kneejerk during unprecedented situations anyway. It's strange and foreign and he feels uncomfortable, he wants to get up and leave and wishes he'd gone to the labs instead of staying here. She's got her fingernails under the edges of things he's not good at and is picking at them and he doesn't know how to handle it in a way that's not vehemently shoving her away.
Severus considers two things. 1) That he's fighting with Ilde, currently, and that he doesn't really like it and doesn't want to be in the same situation with Claire. 2) She seems insecure about it in little stops and starts and the way she averts her eyes and-- why? He didn't tell her because he didn't know what to say, because he was in pain and dealing with talking to Charles and talking to Darcy and talking to William and thinking about a dozen things and, as he said, he always intended to tell her. Why isn't that good enough? --But if it's not good enough why isn't she angry?
He considers a third thing, but it's slower and more subconscious. That she's just telling him what she wants. She's giving him instructions, clearly and honestly. He doesn't have to guess. ]
[ The tension that had climbed up over her back and grabbed on to her shoulders following that request doesn't exactly dissipate, but Claire finds that it does lessen by degrees. She can't say whether or not she was looking for any particular sort of answer, and if prompted, she'd probably admit that what he's given her wasn't exactly it, yet in some way it still feels like it's enough. Always prepared for some kind of fight, it's a relief when she doesn't have to, and when it comes to Severus, she's come to understand that anything that isn't an outright dismissal or taken as a chance to bolt is an achievement. And in her eyes it's an improvement.
Granted, there's no way to disconnect from someone you are sitting four feet across from. Knowing him, as much as she does, he'd find a way. But. The door's right there and it hasn't gone anywhere, and he's still sitting four feet across from her, even following that. ]
[ --is probably not something he should bother saying, he thinks the second it's out of his mouth. But it's true. People tend to either be too frightened of him to argue or too eager to get rid of him to draw it out, no matter the interaction. Anything fraught with tension just makes it that much more intense. He doesn't think Claire's afraid of him (maybe she should be just on principle) but he doesn't understand why she wants him to act like this. She's not getting anything out of their association besides the occasional dinner made and the headache of having to associate with him at all. ]
[ She sincerely hopes that doesn't come out sounding as bitchy as she thinks that it does in her head a nanosecond after having said it. If anything, maybe it just sounds pushy, which is something that she can deal with and even likes about herself. In the end, with what she's been able to piece together about him without outright asking - and now it seems stupid that she never has, with what he's just admitted, and yet Claire stills finds herself unable to ask the questions that she wants to. How long? and why? and what was it like? and a hundred other things no one with a concussion needs to be bombarded with - she understands why his reactions are what they are. Claire just waits it out, hoping that she's doing it right.
Maybe one of these days something insane will happen as a result of her choices, and he'll get to take a look and see what her life is comprised of and decide that he doesn't like it either, and then she'll have confirmation that sticking her neck out there is only worth it in the physical sense. ]
Didn't you ever have, like... you know, a best friend or something, growing up?
[ Claire can't imagine that he was totally without something positive for the entirety of his life this far. It just doesn't seem fair. ]
[ Severus isn't trying to make excuses. He's just telling her, because it is what it is. He's not deliberately jerking her around, he has no idea that anyone might expect otherwise, because no one's ever told him. When people drag him on his behavior, a lot more screaming and death threats are usually involved.
Her question is unpleasant.
He smiles-- brief, cracked, humorless, but it vanishes in an instant as his gaze twitches away. ]
I had a social circle. People who thought I was useful, until I wasn't.
[ He won't mention Lily. He will never mention Lily. It's not a lie with her taken into consideration, either - she was kind to him and cared for him and Severus knows it was genuine, he knows it's his fault it ended the way it did, but it doesn't erase everything that happened around it. Lily needed Severus when they weren't in school because he was her link to magic, but after, she had a whole new world of people who were rich and influential and charismatic. Even as children.
He couldn't compete. He would have been easy to discard anyway; that he gave her such a painful excuse only made it cathartic for her. ]
I grew up in wartime. Some children were more exposed to it than others.
[ Somewhere along the line from dealing them to this point, the cards became unimportant and whatever structural lesson Claire was trying to teach about poker has become that much less important. She still lays cards down, when it's her turn, but there's less strategy involved. His poker face is decidedly better than hers, anyway, which is why she tries not to look at him until she has no choice but to, unless she wants to run the risk of looking like she's deliberately trying to avoid eye contact.
She isn't, but she also doesn't want her sympathy to insult him, and Claire has never been very good at keeping sentiment from stamping itself ugly across her face. Saying that she felt sorry for him wouldn't be the entire truth; still, Claire doesn't have any other ways of quantifying what it is she feels. Protective, maybe, like she wants to shield him the way she does with everyone she cares about, some byproduct of being indestructible. It's all very futile. ]
I can't imagine growing up like that. [ Her voice is soft and searching. Claire grew up with arms and faces that loved her and protected her from the atrocities of the world, no matter how many of them she would eventually come to turn and face on her own. ] Sorry, I don't - I mean, I know it's obviously not a fun thing to talk about. I'm obviously not a very good teacher.
[ She sweeps her hand horizontally to gesture toward the cards. ]
[ Severus picks up a card and flips it between the fingers of one hand. The face of it changes, a moving picture of a garden. ]
I am capable of dealing with it all and that's the only thing that matters. [ He says this plainly. He's useful. That's it. He's bitter and resentful but no one else could have done it; he knows that keenly. He was a teenager when it began and he held the entire war on his shoulders at age twenty-one and everyone else his age and older fell apart while he didn't.
So it's fine. Like Edgeworth attacking him instead of someone else is fine. ]
[ Claire smiles despite herself. No telling whether or not it's directed at that small bit of permission, that compliment, or the changing face of the card into something more complex. ]
You shouldn't have had to. All of it.
[ Her tone is aware enough that although that's her thought on the matter, she's able to detach it enough from wishful thinking and ground it in reality. He shouldn't have had to, but he did, and that's the way that it is and the world works, and it sucks, and she's sorry about it without being culpable, but he's dealt with it. Is dealing with it. He could have killed Edgeworth today. He didn't. That's saying something. Claire obviously thinks better of him than he does of himself, and she's made that clear to him once before at least. It's fine. She'll keep it up until she's given reason not to. ]
Not that good.
[ She adds, plucking the card from him and examining it. ]
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[ It's a nice way of putting it. Reacting. There's a certain level of responsibility inherent and the satisfaction of having done anything at all, and Claire gets it. He isn't the only one in the room who has ever reacted, even if the circumstances aren't on the same playing field or remotely the same whatsoever, even if she ultimately regretted some of the terrible things that she did and watched happen. That isn't the bit that catches her up.
Of course it was always going to be the last piece of what he's said, and of course she's always known that there are things about himself that she has no conception of and things she's never asked about and things that she has no real right knowing. That's not going to stop her, not when approaching trains never have. She's known from the beginning that he isn't all roses and sunshine and that maybe the corners no one looks into with him are darker than anyone really expects. Claire stopped being afraid of monsters in the closet the moment one of them showed up outside of her bedroom door. ]
Those are pretty serious charges to level against someone.
[ No qualifiers, no 'even ifs.' Claire knows what it's like to accuse someone of those things and mean it. She keeps very still, looking at him directly, saying what she does very carefully. She doesn't want to ask if it's true - coming right out and saying it seems so indelicate and offensive - but it's hard to be inquisitive without sounding like she's being judgmental. ]
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[ Severus is resting with his elbows on his knees and his posture slouched. Tired. He looks at her, plain. This is unavoidable. ]
He has no idea. But he believes, and people believe him.
[ No one is going to rush to Severus's defense. He hasn't exactly been kind to everyone and, no matter how many good things he's done, superficial attitude will always trump actions. He knows this. ]
I'd just like to be left alone. Instead I have to solve all their problems and carry all the blame for it anyway--[ he cuts himself off and looks away. He's not going to complain, not to her. Not when she's been kind to him and all he's done in return is be a pain in the ass and then admit all this. ]
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It's a precarious position, because no matter which way she looks at it, she finds that it matters substantially less than it might have a couple of years ago. She just doesn't want to find them on opposing sides of a line drawn somewhere, which would be more devastating than to find out those accusations were even half true.
(Somewhere in the back of her mind she knows they probably are, just as much as she recognizes that you can't always reconcile deeds done with intentions behind them. No good deed, and all that. It's something she'll have to cross when she comes to it.)]
Okay. [ She's quiet for a while preceding that and following it, just trying to find her balance and determine what to say next. ] Well. I don't have any reason to believe him. I don't know him or what he's experienced or what he's done. I don't know you, either, not really, but I'm trying. Just to get some kind of an idea. Nothing's black and white, and I get that. People do what they have to do whether they want to or not. It's just the way things work out. Maybe one day Sirius will figure it out, and you'll get the peace of mind you're looking for.
[ Maybe. But there's always something else and then something else and then something else. ]
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[ There. Fuck it. Sirius has told half the ship that Severus is pretending to have defected 'or something', there's absolutely no reason for him to continue to hide it. Except for how much it feels like shoving hot iron splinters under his fingernails, except for the fact that if Voldemort ever arrives he'll be executed and the rest of them will be murdered, except for everything.
He hates saying it.
Stilted and difficult-sounding he continues, ]
You've been very kind to me. It's unwarranted. But thank you.
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And what do you even actually say to that? Claire thinks about hitting him with something similar to what he said to her but it doesn't fit, and she doesn't have a sandwich to fiddle with anyway. In the end, she doesn't say anything. Just accepts it. Cosmic balance. ]
It's not unwarranted. I wouldn't be kind to you if I didn't think that you deserved it, if I didn't keep thinking that you deserved it.
[ She can at least be sure about it when she says that. ]
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She says that and for a very brief moment Severus looks like someone threw water in his face. Startled and a little confused and maybe even hurt but it's gone, quicker than blinking.
What the fuck does he say. I don't. Stop it. You don't have to. I don't believe you. Maybe he should do something. Like leave. Or kiss her.
Or leave. Definitely leave. ]
I'm going to go back to the lab and work for a while. I can't go to sleep.
[ Because he still has that concussion. ]
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You shouldn't -
[ What, exactly?
Or you could stop running away from me, she thinks but somehow can't quite find the conviction or courage to say. For all the barrels of guns she's stared right into and every other dangerous thing that has been thrown her way, Claire still can't manage to wrap her head around the idea of being rejected in any capacity. She doesn't even know what that means in the context of all of this - this being what, exactly, she's not sure of, just that it's some nebulous thing. 'Friends' isn't even a term she's positive she can use to qualify their relationship, though she thinks it approaches that more and more every day.
Against the contrast of what he's just told her, it seems so stupid and silly. ]
Do you know how to play poker? Real poker. Not magic poker or whatever your version is.
[ She should really just let him leave already. ]
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He looks at her. He thinks that this must be a little like a woman walking into a bar and finding the meanest, biggest, most frightening man possible to stay the night with so that everyone else will leave her be. Is that a flattering thought? Severus has no idea. He can't imagine why Claire does this. Is doing this.
Severus isn't the sort of person to force someone away from him simply for their own good, but it's only because he's never had to. He's lost. ]
No.
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[ She says it even as she's getting up, coming around the head of her bunk to the bureau. Not having much by way of worldly possessions at this point, one of the drawers inside has become storage space for the little items that she procures. Most of them are things that Spike manages to find for her, however he manages. Claire still hasn't quite processed the notion that he's in some kind of relationship with her uncle. As her fingers ghost over the deck - all old and worn and bent and faded, she has no idea where they came from, only that they're helpful in passing downtime - Claire spares one casual thought that maybe she should address that with Peter at some point and then dismisses it. Not her priority at the moment.
The cards tap out into her fingers, and Claire recognizes that there isn't much playing room, but it would be doable. ]
I could teach you, if you wanted. It might be more fun than being down in the lab.
[ She doesn't know if concussive people should actually attempt card games but they also probably should not attempt lab work more. Plus, there is one more thing that she wants to say, and it's just a matter of gathering the bluster necessary to say it against the backdrop of what she has just learned. ]
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[ He's quieter with that than usual. Severus is feeling strangely defensive. He would really like to leave but he also doesn't want to throw her kindness back in her face, because he really has appreciated it even when he's been bothered by it. He appreciates it when she's angry at him, too, because it never feels entitled; that, he thinks, is why he ends up as mad as he does at Ilde. But not at Claire. ]
How are you about-- Nathan?
[ Severus hasn't gotten up and left yet. Despite his mild protest, he's apparently giving her tentative permission to carry on with this card thing. For now. ]
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It is what it is. I've resigned myself to the fact that our schedules are never exactly going to mesh in that respect. [ Claire knows she should be more concerned about it - and maybe elaborate a little more - but she feels oddly calm about the whole thing. Writing it off, maybe, she doesn't know. Or trying to be the sturdy one when she knows Peter is predisposed to fall apart over his brother. Small fingers crowd the cards and shuffle them, and Claire chews the inside of her lip. ] We buried him, back home. This doesn't seem as serious in comparison. I don't know why.
[ Probably because Sylar has been wearing his face this time around. ]
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Nathan Petrelli is dead is something he didn't know despite all the man's talking, and he doesn't really feel anything about it. Severus will be dead before he's 40 and he expected to go sooner; being dead is a state he's unafraid of, but one he contemplates in the abstract quite often. What's more of interest is Claire's reaction to it, but she seems like she's already mourned. ]
The mechanics of it are surreal enough to seem.. distant.
[ Pods full of goo.
(He's waiting for her to decide she doesn't want a bigoted murderer terrorist in her room.) ]
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Maybe. [ Don't tell, she wants to say, knowing that she doesn't need to and not knowing why she feels the urge in the first place. ] The circumstances of it were so...
[ She doesn't have a word for it. Oddly enough it had been easier and more natural to remember him fondly once she was mired in that grief, to laugh about conversations - ones they've yet to have - and inside jokes, from Mexico to lunches. She's sure there's some poetical sort of symmetry there, considering her ability and her relationship with death, but that's a term paper she not prepared to write. ]
Everything else just kind of pales in comparison. I don't know if he knows. I don't know how to even begin bringing it up. [ Pause. ] He deserves a nap, anyway.
[ Yes, it's a crude way of saying your dad is in a coma but hey. ]
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[ He probably knows. That would be Severus's guess, anyway, or maybe his hope that if he were in the same situation, he'd know. He can't imagine not having gotten a feel of it from Harry, even if it was never directly spoken of.
Tenses. They're funny.
Severus sits quietly and lets her set up the cards. He feels dehydrated, like his brain is pulling away from his skull, but he knows he just needs to sit still for a while. He won't forget what he told her or that they're both pretending to ignore it now, but he'll make the effort. If only because he can't think of a way to leave that he's satisfied with. ]
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Everyone always wants to know the future, but it never ends up being anything anyone wants to hear.
[ If pressed, she might insist that she isn't ignoring it. As she sets up the cards, there are a million and five questions running through her mind at speeds so great she can't even catch the edge of one of them with her fingertips. Claire recognizes that maybe she doesn't have to be polite, maybe a little imprudence is warranted given the circumstances of his delivery. But he didn't have to tell her, and he didn't pass out or ask to see it when she told him about the whole healing thing. In her mind, she's offering him as wide a berth as he offered her.
She spends a couple of moments directing him to do this or that with his cards, craning her neck to look at his hand, offering him instructions. It feels nice to know something that he doesn't, considering the size of his normally unconcussed brain, but Claire doesn't find herself smiling. The air in the room is still too full of unfinished thoughts and unasked questions. Playing a hand, without looking up at him: ]
How long did you - were you - [ Claire looks up at him from her hunched over position on the cot, elbows balanced on her knees, and glances at the circles under his eyes and the exhausted patchwork of his bones knitted together under his skin and stops herself. ] Never mind. I want to say something to you.
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He doesn't say anything and just watches her, cards on the thin hotel sheet beneath them, fingers barely touching their surface.
Well. All right. She has his attention. ]
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That whole thing, before, when you asked me if Peter was working and wouldn't tell me why you wanted to know. [ Claire pauses like there's some kind of need for clarification. Really, it's just an opportunity for her to gather her cards, so to speak. ] Look, I'm not totally sure if we're friends or what. I feel like I never really am, even when I think I am, but I kind of, you know, suck at that. Sometimes. So. But that whole thing, you can't just do that. Not with me. It's not fair. I know there probably wasn't a lot of time. I can see that in retrospect. Just - you can. It would mean a lot if you didn't, in the future. [ She plays a card and stares down at it. ] Your turn.
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Severus considers two things. 1) That he's fighting with Ilde, currently, and that he doesn't really like it and doesn't want to be in the same situation with Claire. 2) She seems insecure about it in little stops and starts and the way she averts her eyes and-- why? He didn't tell her because he didn't know what to say, because he was in pain and dealing with talking to Charles and talking to Darcy and talking to William and thinking about a dozen things and, as he said, he always intended to tell her. Why isn't that good enough? --But if it's not good enough why isn't she angry?
He considers a third thing, but it's slower and more subconscious. That she's just telling him what she wants. She's giving him instructions, clearly and honestly. He doesn't have to guess. ]
All right.
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Granted, there's no way to disconnect from someone you are sitting four feet across from. Knowing him, as much as she does, he'd find a way. But. The door's right there and it hasn't gone anywhere, and he's still sitting four feet across from her, even following that. ]
Okay. Thanks.
[ Sometimes they are very verbose. ]
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[ --is probably not something he should bother saying, he thinks the second it's out of his mouth. But it's true. People tend to either be too frightened of him to argue or too eager to get rid of him to draw it out, no matter the interaction. Anything fraught with tension just makes it that much more intense. He doesn't think Claire's afraid of him (maybe she should be just on principle) but he doesn't understand why she wants him to act like this. She's not getting anything out of their association besides the occasional dinner made and the headache of having to associate with him at all. ]
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[ She sincerely hopes that doesn't come out sounding as bitchy as she thinks that it does in her head a nanosecond after having said it. If anything, maybe it just sounds pushy, which is something that she can deal with and even likes about herself. In the end, with what she's been able to piece together about him without outright asking - and now it seems stupid that she never has, with what he's just admitted, and yet Claire stills finds herself unable to ask the questions that she wants to. How long? and why? and what was it like? and a hundred other things no one with a concussion needs to be bombarded with - she understands why his reactions are what they are. Claire just waits it out, hoping that she's doing it right.
Maybe one of these days something insane will happen as a result of her choices, and he'll get to take a look and see what her life is comprised of and decide that he doesn't like it either, and then she'll have confirmation that sticking her neck out there is only worth it in the physical sense. ]
Didn't you ever have, like... you know, a best friend or something, growing up?
[ Claire can't imagine that he was totally without something positive for the entirety of his life this far. It just doesn't seem fair. ]
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Her question is unpleasant.
He smiles-- brief, cracked, humorless, but it vanishes in an instant as his gaze twitches away. ]
I had a social circle. People who thought I was useful, until I wasn't.
[ He won't mention Lily. He will never mention Lily. It's not a lie with her taken into consideration, either - she was kind to him and cared for him and Severus knows it was genuine, he knows it's his fault it ended the way it did, but it doesn't erase everything that happened around it. Lily needed Severus when they weren't in school because he was her link to magic, but after, she had a whole new world of people who were rich and influential and charismatic. Even as children.
He couldn't compete. He would have been easy to discard anyway; that he gave her such a painful excuse only made it cathartic for her. ]
I grew up in wartime. Some children were more exposed to it than others.
[ Which sort of child he was should be obvious. ]
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She isn't, but she also doesn't want her sympathy to insult him, and Claire has never been very good at keeping sentiment from stamping itself ugly across her face. Saying that she felt sorry for him wouldn't be the entire truth; still, Claire doesn't have any other ways of quantifying what it is she feels. Protective, maybe, like she wants to shield him the way she does with everyone she cares about, some byproduct of being indestructible. It's all very futile. ]
I can't imagine growing up like that. [ Her voice is soft and searching. Claire grew up with arms and faces that loved her and protected her from the atrocities of the world, no matter how many of them she would eventually come to turn and face on her own. ] Sorry, I don't - I mean, I know it's obviously not a fun thing to talk about. I'm obviously not a very good teacher.
[ She sweeps her hand horizontally to gesture toward the cards. ]
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[ Severus picks up a card and flips it between the fingers of one hand. The face of it changes, a moving picture of a garden. ]
I am capable of dealing with it all and that's the only thing that matters. [ He says this plainly. He's useful. That's it. He's bitter and resentful but no one else could have done it; he knows that keenly. He was a teenager when it began and he held the entire war on his shoulders at age twenty-one and everyone else his age and older fell apart while he didn't.
So it's fine. Like Edgeworth attacking him instead of someone else is fine. ]
You're better at this than you think.
[ People. Not cards. ]
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You shouldn't have had to. All of it.
[ Her tone is aware enough that although that's her thought on the matter, she's able to detach it enough from wishful thinking and ground it in reality. He shouldn't have had to, but he did, and that's the way that it is and the world works, and it sucks, and she's sorry about it without being culpable, but he's dealt with it. Is dealing with it. He could have killed Edgeworth today. He didn't. That's saying something. Claire obviously thinks better of him than he does of himself, and she's made that clear to him once before at least. It's fine. She'll keep it up until she's given reason not to. ]
Not that good.
[ She adds, plucking the card from him and examining it. ]
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