Title: Long Day
Author:
blueeyelinerx Rating: PG
Word Count: 855
Pairing/Character: Claire, HRG
Summary: Her father’s a liar and her mother’s brain is bleeding and there are strange people in her house, holding her family hostage and she doesn’t even care.
Spoilers/Warnings: short post ep for Unexpected
Reach down your hand in your pocket, pull out some hope for me. It’s been a long day, always. Ain’t that right? And no, lord your hand won’t stop it, just keep you trembling. It’s been a long day, always, ain’t that right?
-- Long Day, Matchbox Twenty
Claire is broken and she’s bleeding and no one can even tell because she’s indestructible. There are days when she wants to stand in a field and yell at the top of her lungs because she’s slowly dying in Odessa but she knows that even that won’t help.
Her father’s a liar and her mother’s brain is bleeding and there are strange people in her house, holding her family hostage and she doesn’t even care.
Claire recognizes one of them as the cop who interrogated her after Jackie’s death. She had liked him then and she likes him even more now, as he holds a gun to her father’s chest and threatens him if he moves.
Claire almost pushes him, just to see what’d happen.
She idly wonders where the sweet, innocent girl she used to be went. It was just a few months ago that she was normal, a little hopeless at school, a little preoccupied with being a cheerleader, but still, mostly a good person. Now, she has exactly one friend and couldn’t care less because her eyes have been opened to the cold, cruel world. She’s completely changed and there are days she doesn’t recognize herself in the mirror.
Her life is falling apart, bit by bit, and for all her invincibility, she can’t put it back together and she’s never felt so helpless.
Claire listens to her father plead with the cop and the chick in the leather jacket and the guy who looks the caveman in the Geico commercials and she has no idea what will happen because she’s learned that people are unpredictable and never do what they say. She had foolishly thought that finding her bio parents would solve all her problems, that they’d rescue her from her lonely existence in Odessa but it turned out her bio-mom was just after the money and her bio-dad didn’t want anything to do with her. Her hope had cracked like the window in her bio-father’s car when she threw the baseball at it and it was then that she first realized she would have to rescue herself.
Claire glares at her father, as he gets the cop to allow his mother and brother to go upstairs. She meant what she said to her father - if it wasn’t for her mother and Lyle and maybe Zach, she would have left Texas a long time ago and never looked back. Maybe she should have anyway, she decides, her father’s words flashing back to her. A few days ago, that man broke into our house - looking for you. He found your mother instead. So I made her forget.
She tunes back in to hear the woman ask about Primatech and some marks on her shoulder and Claire suddenly feels faint because she’s the reason Jackie is dead and that man is still after her and she can’t put her family in danger anymore. She breaks a picture frame and uses the glass to cut her forearm and everyone watches as her skins knits itself back together.
“You’re one of us,” the Geico man says and Claire nods because it’s the only truth she knows.
“I’m one of you,” she whispers and there are tears in her voice. “I’ll be right back,” and the cop nods at her, alarmed but ok with her moving. Claire walks down the hallway into the kitchen and into her father’s study and then she’s sinking down against the hallway wall and sobbing because she’s so overwhelmed. And all she can think of is how she’s not sure she can protect her family when she can’t even protect herself.
Claire pours herself out into the sobs, allows a little bit of herself to fall in each tear. She cries until she cannot breathe, until big, racking breaths fill the silent den. And when she is finished, she stands because she may be hurt and she may be broken but she always mends.
Claire walks back out into the hallway, where the cop is still asking questions and her father is still lying. She watches as her father turns towards her, his expression softening as he sees her tear streaked face. In that moment, Claire feels her anger disappear and a strange sense of peace settle in its place. She understands what she must do and even though her naïve innocence has been smashed to pieces much too early, it is comforting to have a purpose and a plan.
“I will make you a deal,” Claire tells her father, her voice even and confident. “You will tell these people what they need to know, tell them everything, and I will forgive you. But you have to promise me - promise me that you won’t ever lie to me again. If you do, if I catch you lying, the deal’s off and I’ll leave Odessa and never come back.”
Claire’s father looks at her, his eyes big behind his glasses, and Claire sees the moment he realizes she has painted him in a corner and he has no options. He nods, slowly, and Claire takes the first step towards rescuing herself.