promise of a lifetime - part 1
Title: Promise of a lifetime
Fandom: Twilight
Pairing: Quil/Claire
Rating: T for the themes, I guess. It'll probably change on later chapters.
Summary: Multi-chapter story sequel to my oneshot Just Breathe.
---
With her face leaned on her hand, Claire half-closes her eyes when the sunlight shining from the outside peeks through the crack from the blinds of the huge classroom window. She can feel the warmth of the sun burning her eyelids and her cheeks and slowly dragging her to a dozed state. Her peace and quiet lasts only until the professor’s fingers snaps in front of her face, bringing her back to reality.
“Claire? You still haven’t answered the question.”
She shakes her head a little as she straights herself up, “Oh sorry. What was it again?”
“What would you do if this was your last day on Earth?” he repeats the question but noticing her confused look, he adds, “We’re trying to get to our basic needs, what’s fundamental to us.”
“Oh” Claire slowly nods, “Right.”
That question.
Claire is in Newcastle, Australia, where she has been for the last three months. She’s got a job at a coffee place down the street where she shared an apartment with four other girls - each one of them from a different country - and is taking a philosophy course at the local university in her spare time. She promised her mother she’d keep her studies while traveling around. It started out as a year long break before college that turned into a four year long backpack through Europe and later Africa and Oceania. Her mother was about to flip and go meet with her so she could drag her back by the hair all the way to La Push, but she didn’t. Instead, she tried to be supportive and sided with Claire when her father had the same initial reaction. But what much could they do if she had announced her decision via webcam at a cybercafé in Tuscany when she was just two weeks away from coming back home?
She always knew she needed the world and she felt like the world needed her just as much. But now, sitting on a classroom desk with the sun hitting her face and the professor standing in front of her asking her the ultimate question, she falters. What is she doing there, searching for meaning and answers to her life when she knows exactly where everything that mattered to her is? Back home. Her family, her friends, her…
She gets up on a jolt and storms out of the class to never return. Later the day she is packed and at the airport, waiting for her flight. She’s going home.
. . .
Drumming her fingers on the dashboard, Claire steals quick glances outside the car window as it drives fast down the road. The middle-aged woman on the driver’s seat is bopping her head along with the music coming from the radio but stops to look at the quiet passenger. She clears her throat and dims down the volume.
“So you were adventuring around the world.”
There’s a small smile on Claire’s lips when she turns her head to the woman, “Yeah.”
“What made you come home?” she asks with sincere curiosity and dances her eyes from the road to Claire and back to the road again, “You can’t have seen everything already.”
Claire shrugs and turns her attention to the window, “It felt like it was time.”
After her plane landed on Seattle she had to take another small one to Port Angeles. Since this returning was a spur-of-the-moment thing, there was no one to pick her up at the airport; so she hitchhiked to Forks with a really nice old couple and then from Forks to La Push she was riding with a woman named Hilda. She told Claire her life story during the first forty minutes, not that she had asked, and listened intently when the girl resumed her whole life in less than five minutes. Not that she was pushing to get something else more.
Usually Claire doesn’t mind telling her life story, she enjoys the exchange of experiences and she has done it over thousand of times during her four years away, every time she met someone new and interesting. But now she just wants to get home.
Ten minutes more and the streets are comfortably familiar to her. Two more turns and she’ll be where she is supposed to.
“There!” she suddenly jumps on her seat and points toward the small building just ahead of them, “You can pull up here.”
“Here?” the woman slows the car down and eyes the place, “You said your father is a lawyer and your mother’s a teacher. This doesn’t look right” she points out.
The big garage sign outside the shop and the dirty old walls don’t inspire a wholesome familiar feeling. But the smile on Claire’s lips tells a different story. She glances ahead down the street and points one of the houses.
“Over there, down the street. There’s my mom and dad’s house” she stares again outside the window and sighs, “This is me.”
The woman smiles back at her, “Alright. Good luck, Claire” she unlocks the car doors and adds, “It was nice to meet you.”
“Thanks for the ride, Hilda” she opens the door and steps out, swinging her backpack over her shoulders, “It was nice meeting you, too” shutting the door, she waves from the sidewalk, “Bye!”
Claire watches the car drive away and turns back to stare at the sign that read “A&C Shop”. She sighs again and bits her lip before walking forward. The door’s open as it’s a Friday afternoon and business’ going as normal. There isn’t any client inside that she can see from the entrance. There’s only a pair of legs and a butt turned to her direction as the man hovers over the open hood of the car. Fixing her backpack straps on both of her shoulders, she chuckles.
“Who do I have to sleep with to have some service around here?”
Her tone is mocking and teasing but she might as well have delivered with shouts and death threats by the aggravated way that Quil’s head snaps up and turns around to look at her. He has a screwdriver on one of his hands and a dirty rag on the other. His mouth’s left hanging open as Claire stands a few feet away from him with her grin growing wider.
“Well, in that case…” she tilts her head to the side, and gives a one-shouldered shrug.
She shifts her body weight from one foot to the other and waits for his reaction. Any reaction. But there’s none as he kept standing in the same position, holding the screwdriver and the rag. Claire’s hands that were on her waist are thrown in the air as she sighs exasperated.
“Ok, seriously, it’s been four years and all you’re gonna do is stand there and stare at me? You’re starting to creep me out, Quil.”
It’s like the sound of his name coming from her mouth snaps him from his daze and in a split of a second he has dropped what he was holding and his arms are around her waist as he pulls her up to a bone-crushing hug and twirls her around. She laughs out loud at the sudden embrace and hugs him back, tightening her arms around his neck. She’s sure her backpack’s weighting a ton but he’s effortlessly swinging her up.
“I leave for five minutes and you’re already groping the costumers?”
Embry’s voice comes from the back of the shop and catches Claire’s attention when he emerges from behind the car Quil was working on before.
“Embry!” she shrieks right on Quil’s ear which makes him wince and free her when she squirms away from him to throw herself at Embry.
“Claire?” he picks her up just effortlessly as the other, “Oh God!” he makes an exaggerated huff sound and bends his knees for dramatic effect, “Let me guess: only bread, pasta and wine in Europe, huh?”
“Shut up!” she squeals and lets go of him to slap him on the arm.
He frowns and rubs her arm where she slapped him even though he barely felt it, then smiles, “I missed you, kid” and gaining a glare from her, he cocks one eyebrow, “It’s wrong to call you a kid now, isn’t?”
She rolls her eyes, “Thank you. And I kinda missed you, too.”
“Only kinda?” he raises both eyebrows when the phone rings on the back office, “Saved by the bell. Don’t go anywhere!” he winks and jogs back to where he came from.
Claire doesn’t move for good two whole minutes and neither does Quil. He’s staring at her back, burning holes on her with the intensity of his stare. She can literally feel his eyes on her skin. When she finally turns around, he catches his breath.
She is so different from the last time he saw her. She’s wearing safari shorts, an old dirty green button up shirt that had enough open buttons to reveal the white tank top she wore underneath; and a pair of old beat-up black combat boots. Her hair’s tied up on a messy bun with only a single thin little braid hanging from around her neck and down the front of her shoulder; the hair seems lighter too.
“Your mom didn’t tell me you were coming” he breaks his silence and crosses his arms against his chest.
She nods, “I didn’t tell anyone, I wanted it to be a surprise” she slips the straps from her shoulders and drops the backpack on the floor with a thud, “I just got here.”
He eyes the backpack and then fixates on her eyes again, “And you came here.”
Placing both hands on her waist, she glances around the garage. Some things really never change; it’s exactly just like she remembers the place. Quil’s exactly the same as she remembers, too. A pair of cut-off pants, no shirt, barefoot. Almost military buzz cut and way too much muscle for her to concentrate on anything else other than that. When she manages to look back up to his face, she gives him a side smile and shrugs.
“Where else would I go?”
Fandom: Twilight
Pairing: Quil/Claire
Rating: T for the themes, I guess. It'll probably change on later chapters.
Summary: Multi-chapter story sequel to my oneshot Just Breathe.
---
With her face leaned on her hand, Claire half-closes her eyes when the sunlight shining from the outside peeks through the crack from the blinds of the huge classroom window. She can feel the warmth of the sun burning her eyelids and her cheeks and slowly dragging her to a dozed state. Her peace and quiet lasts only until the professor’s fingers snaps in front of her face, bringing her back to reality.
“Claire? You still haven’t answered the question.”
She shakes her head a little as she straights herself up, “Oh sorry. What was it again?”
“What would you do if this was your last day on Earth?” he repeats the question but noticing her confused look, he adds, “We’re trying to get to our basic needs, what’s fundamental to us.”
“Oh” Claire slowly nods, “Right.”
That question.
Claire is in Newcastle, Australia, where she has been for the last three months. She’s got a job at a coffee place down the street where she shared an apartment with four other girls - each one of them from a different country - and is taking a philosophy course at the local university in her spare time. She promised her mother she’d keep her studies while traveling around. It started out as a year long break before college that turned into a four year long backpack through Europe and later Africa and Oceania. Her mother was about to flip and go meet with her so she could drag her back by the hair all the way to La Push, but she didn’t. Instead, she tried to be supportive and sided with Claire when her father had the same initial reaction. But what much could they do if she had announced her decision via webcam at a cybercafé in Tuscany when she was just two weeks away from coming back home?
She always knew she needed the world and she felt like the world needed her just as much. But now, sitting on a classroom desk with the sun hitting her face and the professor standing in front of her asking her the ultimate question, she falters. What is she doing there, searching for meaning and answers to her life when she knows exactly where everything that mattered to her is? Back home. Her family, her friends, her…
She gets up on a jolt and storms out of the class to never return. Later the day she is packed and at the airport, waiting for her flight. She’s going home.
. . .
Drumming her fingers on the dashboard, Claire steals quick glances outside the car window as it drives fast down the road. The middle-aged woman on the driver’s seat is bopping her head along with the music coming from the radio but stops to look at the quiet passenger. She clears her throat and dims down the volume.
“So you were adventuring around the world.”
There’s a small smile on Claire’s lips when she turns her head to the woman, “Yeah.”
“What made you come home?” she asks with sincere curiosity and dances her eyes from the road to Claire and back to the road again, “You can’t have seen everything already.”
Claire shrugs and turns her attention to the window, “It felt like it was time.”
After her plane landed on Seattle she had to take another small one to Port Angeles. Since this returning was a spur-of-the-moment thing, there was no one to pick her up at the airport; so she hitchhiked to Forks with a really nice old couple and then from Forks to La Push she was riding with a woman named Hilda. She told Claire her life story during the first forty minutes, not that she had asked, and listened intently when the girl resumed her whole life in less than five minutes. Not that she was pushing to get something else more.
Usually Claire doesn’t mind telling her life story, she enjoys the exchange of experiences and she has done it over thousand of times during her four years away, every time she met someone new and interesting. But now she just wants to get home.
Ten minutes more and the streets are comfortably familiar to her. Two more turns and she’ll be where she is supposed to.
“There!” she suddenly jumps on her seat and points toward the small building just ahead of them, “You can pull up here.”
“Here?” the woman slows the car down and eyes the place, “You said your father is a lawyer and your mother’s a teacher. This doesn’t look right” she points out.
The big garage sign outside the shop and the dirty old walls don’t inspire a wholesome familiar feeling. But the smile on Claire’s lips tells a different story. She glances ahead down the street and points one of the houses.
“Over there, down the street. There’s my mom and dad’s house” she stares again outside the window and sighs, “This is me.”
The woman smiles back at her, “Alright. Good luck, Claire” she unlocks the car doors and adds, “It was nice to meet you.”
“Thanks for the ride, Hilda” she opens the door and steps out, swinging her backpack over her shoulders, “It was nice meeting you, too” shutting the door, she waves from the sidewalk, “Bye!”
Claire watches the car drive away and turns back to stare at the sign that read “A&C Shop”. She sighs again and bits her lip before walking forward. The door’s open as it’s a Friday afternoon and business’ going as normal. There isn’t any client inside that she can see from the entrance. There’s only a pair of legs and a butt turned to her direction as the man hovers over the open hood of the car. Fixing her backpack straps on both of her shoulders, she chuckles.
“Who do I have to sleep with to have some service around here?”
Her tone is mocking and teasing but she might as well have delivered with shouts and death threats by the aggravated way that Quil’s head snaps up and turns around to look at her. He has a screwdriver on one of his hands and a dirty rag on the other. His mouth’s left hanging open as Claire stands a few feet away from him with her grin growing wider.
“Well, in that case…” she tilts her head to the side, and gives a one-shouldered shrug.
She shifts her body weight from one foot to the other and waits for his reaction. Any reaction. But there’s none as he kept standing in the same position, holding the screwdriver and the rag. Claire’s hands that were on her waist are thrown in the air as she sighs exasperated.
“Ok, seriously, it’s been four years and all you’re gonna do is stand there and stare at me? You’re starting to creep me out, Quil.”
It’s like the sound of his name coming from her mouth snaps him from his daze and in a split of a second he has dropped what he was holding and his arms are around her waist as he pulls her up to a bone-crushing hug and twirls her around. She laughs out loud at the sudden embrace and hugs him back, tightening her arms around his neck. She’s sure her backpack’s weighting a ton but he’s effortlessly swinging her up.
“I leave for five minutes and you’re already groping the costumers?”
Embry’s voice comes from the back of the shop and catches Claire’s attention when he emerges from behind the car Quil was working on before.
“Embry!” she shrieks right on Quil’s ear which makes him wince and free her when she squirms away from him to throw herself at Embry.
“Claire?” he picks her up just effortlessly as the other, “Oh God!” he makes an exaggerated huff sound and bends his knees for dramatic effect, “Let me guess: only bread, pasta and wine in Europe, huh?”
“Shut up!” she squeals and lets go of him to slap him on the arm.
He frowns and rubs her arm where she slapped him even though he barely felt it, then smiles, “I missed you, kid” and gaining a glare from her, he cocks one eyebrow, “It’s wrong to call you a kid now, isn’t?”
She rolls her eyes, “Thank you. And I kinda missed you, too.”
“Only kinda?” he raises both eyebrows when the phone rings on the back office, “Saved by the bell. Don’t go anywhere!” he winks and jogs back to where he came from.
Claire doesn’t move for good two whole minutes and neither does Quil. He’s staring at her back, burning holes on her with the intensity of his stare. She can literally feel his eyes on her skin. When she finally turns around, he catches his breath.
She is so different from the last time he saw her. She’s wearing safari shorts, an old dirty green button up shirt that had enough open buttons to reveal the white tank top she wore underneath; and a pair of old beat-up black combat boots. Her hair’s tied up on a messy bun with only a single thin little braid hanging from around her neck and down the front of her shoulder; the hair seems lighter too.
“Your mom didn’t tell me you were coming” he breaks his silence and crosses his arms against his chest.
She nods, “I didn’t tell anyone, I wanted it to be a surprise” she slips the straps from her shoulders and drops the backpack on the floor with a thud, “I just got here.”
He eyes the backpack and then fixates on her eyes again, “And you came here.”
Placing both hands on her waist, she glances around the garage. Some things really never change; it’s exactly just like she remembers the place. Quil’s exactly the same as she remembers, too. A pair of cut-off pants, no shirt, barefoot. Almost military buzz cut and way too much muscle for her to concentrate on anything else other than that. When she manages to look back up to his face, she gives him a side smile and shrugs.
“Where else would I go?”