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[sam_cc]

Story Title: A Covered Flame - Part One
Rating: T - Character Death
Genre: Tragedy
Series: Professor Layton
Pairing(s): One-sided Dimitri/Claire, Layton/Claire
Character(s): Dimitri Allen, Claire Foley, Hershel Layton, Bill Hawks, Clive Dove
Summary: A man who was never meant to admit his feelings for a co-worker does just that and causes history to spiral out of control because of it. What would the world do if the sacrifice lives but the hero dies?
Notes: There’s a bit of a story behind this one. A while back I received a comment on one of my Dimitri/Claire fics saying that I should do another one where Dimitri admits his feelings to her. My first thoughts were that I could never do that, the whole beauty of their relationship is the one-sided, angst-ridden attraction he had for her! But the more I thought about it, the more the question of “What could have happened if he had told Claire that he liked her before the explosion?” went through my head and this story was born to try to answer that question. It’s the first time in a lot of years that I’ve written a multi-chaptered piece this long and I’ve worked really hard on this one, so I hope that it’s enjoyable to read. It starts during the flashback period of the third game and will contain spoilers for the entire first trilogy in a roundabout sort of way.

Claire was a good worker and everyone knew that. She never complained. She just quietly got on with her tasks, smiling to herself. Although sometimes she would be not-so-quiet and burst into excited exclamations when she felt they were making progress on their project.

All in all she was the model scientist - intelligent, eager and hard-working. Dimitri was always proud to have her as part of the team.

On the other hand, Bill saw her as little more than hired help and frowned upon Dimitri for his favouritism of her.

“It really is quite sickening, you know,” Bill muttered, snapping Dimitri back to reality.

“Huh? What is?” Dimitri asked, guiltily.

“The way you look at her. You must know she has a boyfriend,” clarified Bill.

“Oh yes, of course…” mumbled Dimitri.

He did indeed know very well that Claire was involved in a relationship with a man called Hershel Layton. And he was happy for them, really he was. If Claire was the perfect woman than Layton was the perfect man to match her - he was pleasant, studious and everything that a girl could want in a guy. He… possessed all of the qualities that Dimitri lacked, save for the studious part. But sadly because Layton was such a nice guy it was hard to resent him for all his qualities.

So Dimitri just lived with a silent attraction to a girl he could never have festering in his heart.

“You really are pathetic,” Bill said, bluntly.

“I know,” Dimitri replied.

“If it were me then I’d not let anything stand in the way of getting the woman that I wanted,” Bill went on.

“I pity the girl you ever set your eyes on then,” Dimitri said, it sounded light-hearted enough, but he truly meant it.

Bill growled; “She’d be luckier than any girl who has you moping after her forever.”

“Well… I could have told Claire how I feel if I wanted to,” argued Dimitri.

“No you couldn’t,” Bill laughed, “You wouldn’t want to make waves.”

“It wouldn’t be making any waves, it’s not as if I’d want her to leave Hershel or anything just because I like her,” Dimitri protested, not adding the part that it would just make things extremely awkward between them at work.

“Go on then! Tell her how you feel, if you’re brave enough,” snorted Bill.

Dimitri glanced over at Claire, who was far enough away for their conversation to not be overheard by her, happily getting on with her work.

“I can’t tell her just like that…”

“Wuss.”

Pulling himself up to his full height, Dimitri stormed past Bill and made his way over to Claire.

“Oh, Dimitri,” Claire said cheerfully, “I think we’re making real progress on the time machine now, with any luck we should be ready for a test run soon enough. Isn’t that great?”

“Y-yes…” he stammered, suddenly losing his nerve a bit, “Claire, I know this is quite sudden but… there’s something I need to talk to you about, away from work.” He didn’t want to give Bill the satisfaction of watching him fail to pour his heart out right there.

She paused for a moment, and then replied, “All right, but can it wait? I promised that I’d meet Hershel later.”

“It’s… it’s pretty important,” he said, feeling worse about what he was doing as he went on talking.

“In that case I’ll meet up with you after seeing Hershel, it shouldn’t be a problem,” Claire replied, “At your house?”

“S-sure…” That was as good a place to throw his pride away as any.

“I’ll meet you around six o’clock then,” said Claire, who was always more direct about arranging things, “But you must excuse me, I don’t want to risk being late for my other meeting.”

It was just then that Dimitri noticed that there was a large box on the floor. It looked like a hat box, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a hat that tall. She picked it up and put it on the table.

“A present?” Dimitri guessed.

“Yes, just a little something for Hershel. He’s going to love it,” Claire replied, smiling.

“You should… um, you should go now. Bill and I can handle the rest of the clearing up,” said Dimitri.

“Are you sure? Well, all right then. I’ll see you later,” Claire answered, getting up to fetch her jacket.

“S-see you…” Dimitri mumbled, watching her leave.

“You did not just give her the afternoon off,” Bill growled from behind him, making Dimitri start.

“We just have cleaning to finish up here, don’t be so petty,” answered Dimitri.

Shaking his head, Bill commented, “We were planning on pushing the test date forward. The girl was going to meet me here tonight to run through a few final checks.”

“While I’m not opposed to more checks I’ve told you before that the machine isn’t ready to be tested just yet,” Dimitri commented, “If checks are really all you were planning to do then I can assure you that I won’t be keeping Claire away very long.”

“Good, we’ve wasted enough time here already because of your silly attraction,” grumbled Bill, as if he wasn’t the one to prompt Dimitri’s meeting with Claire in the first place.

From there the afternoon seemed to drag on forever. The cleaning itself didn’t take very long and Dimitri soon found himself back at home, but from that point onwards he seemed to spend every moment glancing towards the clock, waiting for 6:00pm to arrive as if it was the time of his final judgement. In some ways it could well have been.

At long last, the moment arrived and a gentle tap could be heard at the door.

Dimitri darted over quicker than he intended to, pulling the door open and greeting his guest.

“Claire… hello! Um, do come in…” he said.

“Thank you very much,” she giggled, walking past him.

Suddenly he became aware of how unorganised his apartment was, but seeing that Claire had been here many times before to discuss work on the time machine with him that probably wasn’t too much of an issue. Chances were that was what she thought he’d called her over to talk about anyway.

“Can I get you some tea?” he offered.

“No thanks, I’ve just had some,” Claire replied, heading through to the living room and taking a seat, “So what was it that you wanted to talk about? Bill and I are going to check the machine over later if it was anything to do with that.”

“No, not at all,” Dimitri admitted, sitting on the sofa next to her, “Bill did mention your overtime work, though. You don’t have to do that if you don’t want to.”

“Nonsense, I want to see this project completed just as much as either of you two do,” she scolded, “And anyway, if I meet you to talk about work out of hours I don’t see why I should do the same for Bill.”

“We’re… not actually here to talk about work,” Dimitri confessed.

“Oh?” Claire said, leaning forward, just enough so that Dimitri suddenly felt more uncomfortable than he already was. She seemed to be smirking too; “You never want to talk about anything but work. It’s nice to hear you’re coming out of your shell a bit. Do you want my advice on something?”

“Not exactly,” he gulped.

“Oh darn, for a moment I thought you had a girl that you liked and you needed help winning her over,” teased Claire.

“I… do have a girl that I like…” he mumbled, suddenly feeling a lump in his throat.

“You do? Then why didn’t you tell me?” Claire gasped.

“Because…”

“Because?”

“…The girl that I like… it-it’s you, Claire…”

There was a very definite silence.

Dimitri thought he felt his heart stopping, but after a few moments of them still staring at each other with him not appearing to be dead he reasoned that mustn’t be the case.

“You… you what…?” Claire managed, after more than a whole minute.

“I’m sorry! I know you love Hershel and I wouldn’t want to-“

Claire put her hand on top of his, effectively silencing him.

“Dimitri, you don’t have to apologise for how you feel,” she said firmly, “But you are right, I do love Hershel…”

“And I know that, which was why I never wanted to tell you, but…” He couldn’t think of anything to follow that ‘but’. Confessing his feelings to her was probably the dumbest thing he’d ever done in his life…

She looked across at him, her usually cheerful expression replaced with a sadness that he never wanted to be on her face, least of all when he was the reason for putting it there.

“You poor thing…” she whispered, “We’ve been working together for such a long time and you’ve always been living with these feelings…?”

“Y-yes,” he said, taken aback that she was being so understanding about the matter. Most girls would have screamed at him and left. But then Claire wasn’t most girls.

She thoughtfully commented, “But we’ve… known each other a bit longer than I’ve known Hershel.”

“And he just happened to be better at this than me,” Dimitri said, he knew the answer to that one at least, “I missed my chance with you…”

Claire pulled away from him to reflect on all this for a moment. He wasn’t entirely sure what she would say next, as all of this was a lot to take in.

“Can we sit for a while?” she asked.

“W-what do you mean…?” Dimitri replied.

“Just sit. Like this. Not talking or anything,” Claire confirmed.

“A-all right…”

It was a bit of a strange request, but then he’d just made an even stranger confession to her and had no place to protest.

The two sat in silence, staring into space. It felt so uncomfortable, so wrong. Dimitri just wished that he could go back to this morning, when he hadn’t told her that he had feelings for her and the two of them were just two friends talking about science together.

He had no idea how long they sat for. In contrast to when he’d been waiting for her to arrive, Dimitri had now completely stopped caring about the time.

One person who did care very much about the time, however, was Hershel Layton.

The man had been pacing his living room, trying to stop his newly gifted top hat from slipping off his head and wondering where Claire was. She had said that she was going to work but he’d never expected her to take this long. After some thought, Layton decided that it wouldn’t be inappropriate to call the lab to check on her.

“Hello, this is Hershel Layton,” he said, when someone answered his call, “Is Claire there?”

“No, she isn’t,” grumbled Bill, annoyed at how long Dimitri had been holding her up for.

“Oh. Um, well… she said she was going to go to work after she left earlier,” Layton replied.

Yes, but she hasn’t bothered to show up, was what Bill wanted to say. And when she does there’s a chance that Dimitri will be with her and then I’ll have no test subject to throw into the time machine because he’d never permit it. If only there was someone else to use…

“Hello? Are you still there?” Layton cut-in.

…Yes. It was perfect.

“Sorry about that, I was just checking out of the window. It appears that Claire has just shown up, so you should probably come over to meet her,” Bill lied.

“But if she’s just turned up then I’m sure she has a lot of work to do,” reasoned Layton.

“I think she needs you here,” said Bill, vaguely.

“Oh? Well a gentleman should never keep a lady waiting,” Layton said, “I’ll see you in a few moments.”

Yes, see to it that you do, Bill thought, hanging up the phone.

What a bizarre turn of events that Claire would arrive at work so late then demand to see him instead of just coming to his house, was what was running through Layton’s mind. But then Claire wouldn’t do something like that without a reason and it was his duty to find out what that reason was.

He pulled on his jacket and headed to the labs as fast as he could, not forgetting to put on the hat that Claire had given him. He had promised to wear it, after all.

It all seemed very quiet, so he pulled the door open hesitantly.

“Claire? Are you here?” Layton whispered, as if worried about disturbing someone.

“Good, you’ve arrived,” Bill said, walking over to him.

“I came as soon as I could. So… where is she?” questioned Layton.

“Claire is just in the backroom getting ready for the test run,” replied Bill.

“Test run?” Layton echoed.

“Yes, she might not have mentioned it. You see, we’ve finally got the time machine into a position where we can test it on human subjects, and Claire, being the star pupil that she is, has offered to be the one we use for the tests,” Bill confirmed.

Nodding, Layton agreed, “That does sound very like her, this work means so much to Claire.”

“But the problem is that she’s so nervous,” Bill added, “I think that’s why she hasn’t said anything to you, she doesn’t want to worry you. Because let’s face it, being the first human in a time machine is a very uncertain leap for science and we don’t know what could happen to her.”

“Y-yes…” agreed Layton, suddenly not so sure he should be allowing his partner to go through with something so potentially dangerous.

“It would break her heart not to go ahead with this, though. Imagine all those months of production wasted because she lost her nerve,” said Bill, “If only there was someone else…”

“Don’t you have others working on the project?” said Layton, instantly feeling bad for suggesting someone else should put their life on the line.

Shaking his head, Bill said, “I’m needed here to help if anything does go wrong during the test and Dimitri… well, that man is nowhere to be found.”

“Curious…” mumbled Layton, who had never put Dimitri down to being a coward.

“Well, I better go tell Claire to come through for the test,” Bill said, turning to walk away.

“Wait!” Layton called, and Bill tried very hard not to grin, “What if… I was to do it instead?”

“But you’re not a scientist,” Bill mock-protested, turning back to look at him.

“I wouldn’t need to be just to stand in this contraption, correct?” said Layton, looking at the time machine, “That way you could test it and not put Claire at risk.”

“She wouldn’t be happy to know that you’re doing this,” Bill pointed out.

“She… she wanted me to be a gentleman and this is what a gentleman does,” Layton told him, with an air of finality.

“Very well, you seem determined so I won’t try to stop you,” said Bill, “Just step this way…”

Layton followed him, taking off his hat and passing it to Bill, who placed to one side, before standing in the time machine and trying to mask the bundle of nerves he was feeling. If this worked then he could end up at some unknown point of the future with no idea how to return. If it didn’t work then… then he’d rather not think of the consequences. At least it would be happening to him and not to Claire.

All the same it was rather daunting not knowing what the immediate future held…

He watched Bill as the metallic door to the machine clanged shut and then he could see nothing but darkness all around him. For a moment he could have sworn that Bill was smiling as the door closed, but then he was probably just excited to see all his hard work come to completion.

In truth, what Bill was exited about was the fame and fortune that would come with being the first man ever to create a working time machine. Balderdash to Dimitri! Bill was the one here right now, so he would be the man who’d go down in history.

As for what would happen to Hershel Layton…

Bill flicked the switch.

…He couldn’t care less what happened to Hershel Layton.

The machine whirred into life - it was loud, it was revolutionary, it was… glorious! People must have been able to hear the noise from down the street, and Layton could certainly here it from trapped inside.

“M-mr. Hawks…? Is it supposed to be this loud? Mr. Hawks? Can you hear me! Mr. Hawks…!” he yelled, banging on the door.

“Sorry, Layton, you’re the sap who got in there so you reap what you sow,” laughed Bill.

He was ecstatic, too much so to notice that the noises were louder than they should be and that the metal plates were hissing out steam where they shouldn’t be, and…

…By the time the first spark of the fire came it was too late to stop it. Although Bill might have been able to switch the contraption off if he’d thought faster on his feet, he was too scared to risk putting himself in further harm, darting for cover to the sound of Layton’s yells.

The explosion came soon afterwards.

If they hadn’t heard the machine starting up then the people of London did indeed here that.

Including from Dimitri’s house, not too many streets away, where he and Claire had continued to sit in silence this whole time.

“What was that?” Dimitri said, getting to his feet and heading for the window.

“It… sounded like it might have been from the lab, I hope it’s nothing serious,” Claire said, walking over behind him.

“There’s fire! It’s a fire, Claire! In the street where the lab is!” Dimitri yelled, turning to look at her, face filled with horror.

“Let’s go then!” she said firmly, both of them darting for the door.

By the time they’d got there a crowd had already gathered around the street and the blaze was too high for anyone to get any closer. The police hadn’t quite picked up on it yet, but the general public had and were all either not prepared to miss out on the show or screaming in horror for the potential loss of loved ones.

Falling into the latter category was a young boy called Clive. He knew that he’d stayed out later than he should have done but had never for a moment thought that this was the sight that he’d return home to.

His parents were in there! They were his whole life! What could he ever do without them…?

Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t too late to save them.

With no kindly gentleman there to stop him, Clive ran into the fire to find his parents and burned alive…