(no subject)
Title: Another White Dash (Part 3/4: East)
Fandom: Lost
Characters/Pairings: Claire, Alex, mentions of other characters.
Word Count: 1,284
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: Part four is going up tonight, and it's a special one.
Summary: AU, post island. Claire rents out a small apartment, not too far from the hotel she was staying at, and decides to deal with other people's problems. After all, that's what a guidance counselor does right? She takes a job at a local high school, works okay hours and gets paid pretty well. Until something happens.
Her car breaks down in Virginia. Right smack in the middle of I-95, and she couldn’t have really picked a worse place to break down. She manages to almost get hit twice and it takes the tow truck forty-five minutes to get out there, so when all is said and done she ends up in a hotel, and her car ends up in the shop for a week.
A week became a week and a half. And Claire kind of never left.
But car repairs equal her having to find a job and so Claire rents out a small apartment not too far from the hotel she was staying at and decides to deal with other people’s problems. After all that’s what a guidance counselor does right? She takes a job at a local high school, works okay hours and gets paid pretty well.
Until something happens. A car crash, a few dead girls, and suddenly they need extra counselors and they’re scheduling all these students to come in.
They haven’t even been in school for a month. The leaves are just now turning, showing signs of fall; it’s just starting to feel like school is in session and summer is over. She doesn’t know most of the kids, she’s only seen a few, so she knows the influx she’s about to get is going to be mind-blowing, and keeping track of all of them and their stories and feelings will be even harder.
The first two days she works late, seated behind that desk, exhausted from all the crying teenagers and the death. The death is familiar enough she thinks, it’s an easier job for her now that she’s been desensitized by it, to a degree, due to the island.
It’s as the sun as setting in the sky, leaving swirling purples, pinks, and oranges in the sky, just after she’s finished watching an eighteen year old almost lose it right in front of her, mourning the death of her friends, that she manages to run into another familiar face.
The girl who walks in looks nothing like Claire remembers. She’s maybe an inch or so taller, her hair shorter, still wavy like she just walked off the beach. She looks different in normal clothes, not worn out from overuse. And she looks awkward, and just a bit uncomfortable, as she recognizes Claire too.
“Alex.” Claire says the girl’s name, just to check, realizing, as she looks down at the file in front of her, that she hadn’t even seen the name’s familiarity when she flipped to it. It was just another file amid a swarm of them. She wonders how in the hell she missed that. She wonders how in the hell she keeps running into people from the island.
“Hi, Claire.” Alex greets her, not really sure what to do. She just stays in the doorway, hands in the pockets of her jeans. “You’re the new counselor?”
“Yeah,” Claire tells her, remembering what she was there for, and motioning to the chair across from her. “You can have a seat.”
“I don’t even need to be here, you know.” Alex replies, taking a seat even so. “They just put me in here because I had a few classes with those girls. I never even really talked to them.” Which would explain why, in comparison to what Claire has seen today, Alex seems remarkably unaffected.
“Are you sure you’re not just trying to get out of here and go home?” Claire asks, having already had this experience with one of the students who had passed through her office.
“Sort of. But really, there’s nothing for me to talk about. The school’s just doing this to cover their own butts.” Claire is inclined to not believe her, but she seems too relaxed, too indifferent about it, to be lying.
So Claire puts down her file, lets go of any ideas she had about actually counseling this girl, and instead settles for just catching up. “How’s your mom?”
“She’s good. She’s teaching French at the Foreign Service Institute over in Arlington. The government made her go through this whole thing, which is why we’re living here.” Alex leans back in her chair, put at ease by the change in topics to something more of small talk.
“What did they want?” Claire asks, interested. This is stuff she hasn’t yet heard. People don’t really keep in touch with Danielle or Alex. They’re kind of a separate branch, since they’re not really survivors of the same crash.
“They just had a bunch of questions to ask her. I guess it had to do with why she was originally on the island and some things that transpired while she was there.” Alex shrugs. “She didn’t really talk about it with me a lot.”
“How’s your relationship with your mom?” She’s shifting back into counselor mode again. She’s got to watch that.
“Strained, but it’s...it’s okay. There’s just a lot of time to make up for, you know?”
She thinks of her own relationship with Jack, this newfound half-brother of hers, how uncomfortable that had been. She left to avoid it. At least Alex was still here trying to get over that roadblock. Then again the bond between mother and daughter was way stronger than that of the relationship she had to Jack. They were related but just not as closely. Not close enough to make it of any importance.
“So how have you been?” Alex asks, to be polite.
“I’m um...I’m fine. I was on my way up north and my car stalled so I kind of...got stuck here.” She’s trying to answer her question without going into detail, without really answering it.
”When did that happen?”
“August.” She admits.
“And you haven’t...I mean is it still broken?”
“No I just haven’t gotten around to going anywhere yet.” Claire pauses, tries to find words. “Truth is I wasn’t really going anywhere, I was just...restless. So I figure I’ll stay here until I figure out where it is that I’m actually going.”
“I’ve always wanted to see snow.” Alex tells her, randomly. “I didn’t see it on the island and then it hasn’t snowed here either. If it wasn’t for my mom I’d be in like New York or something. They get a lot right?”
“Yeah.” Claire confirms, an idea forming in her head.
“One of the girls in my class, she’s from New York City, and she says there’s no place better around the holidays. So maybe I’ll get there sometime soon.”
“Maybe.” Claire replies, thinking about the snow she hasn’t really seen all that much of, and the upcoming holidays. New York City, with all it’s people, it’s easy to get lost there right? Right now that’s what she wants, to just fall off the radar, just disappear from everyone else’s sight. “Hopefully.”
Claire doesn’t say much more and Alex waits for a minute or so, before she finally says, “Anyway, it’s getting late, so if it’s okay with you I think I’m going to go.”
“Yeah, alright.” Claire snaps out of it right then and there. “It was nice seeing you again Alex.”
“Yeah, you too.” Alex replies, and Claire thinks she might actually mean it. She rises, goes to the door, but turns back as she’s about to leave with a, “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
And Claire hadn’t seen that coming. This girl, she thinks, is wiser than any seventeen year old has the right to be, as she watches her close the door quietly behind her.
Thing is, Claire has found something she was looking for, and in a way she owes it to Alex.
She’s found a direction.
Part 4
Fandom: Lost
Characters/Pairings: Claire, Alex, mentions of other characters.
Word Count: 1,284
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: Part four is going up tonight, and it's a special one.
Summary: AU, post island. Claire rents out a small apartment, not too far from the hotel she was staying at, and decides to deal with other people's problems. After all, that's what a guidance counselor does right? She takes a job at a local high school, works okay hours and gets paid pretty well. Until something happens.
Her car breaks down in Virginia. Right smack in the middle of I-95, and she couldn’t have really picked a worse place to break down. She manages to almost get hit twice and it takes the tow truck forty-five minutes to get out there, so when all is said and done she ends up in a hotel, and her car ends up in the shop for a week.
A week became a week and a half. And Claire kind of never left.
But car repairs equal her having to find a job and so Claire rents out a small apartment not too far from the hotel she was staying at and decides to deal with other people’s problems. After all that’s what a guidance counselor does right? She takes a job at a local high school, works okay hours and gets paid pretty well.
Until something happens. A car crash, a few dead girls, and suddenly they need extra counselors and they’re scheduling all these students to come in.
They haven’t even been in school for a month. The leaves are just now turning, showing signs of fall; it’s just starting to feel like school is in session and summer is over. She doesn’t know most of the kids, she’s only seen a few, so she knows the influx she’s about to get is going to be mind-blowing, and keeping track of all of them and their stories and feelings will be even harder.
The first two days she works late, seated behind that desk, exhausted from all the crying teenagers and the death. The death is familiar enough she thinks, it’s an easier job for her now that she’s been desensitized by it, to a degree, due to the island.
It’s as the sun as setting in the sky, leaving swirling purples, pinks, and oranges in the sky, just after she’s finished watching an eighteen year old almost lose it right in front of her, mourning the death of her friends, that she manages to run into another familiar face.
The girl who walks in looks nothing like Claire remembers. She’s maybe an inch or so taller, her hair shorter, still wavy like she just walked off the beach. She looks different in normal clothes, not worn out from overuse. And she looks awkward, and just a bit uncomfortable, as she recognizes Claire too.
“Alex.” Claire says the girl’s name, just to check, realizing, as she looks down at the file in front of her, that she hadn’t even seen the name’s familiarity when she flipped to it. It was just another file amid a swarm of them. She wonders how in the hell she missed that. She wonders how in the hell she keeps running into people from the island.
“Hi, Claire.” Alex greets her, not really sure what to do. She just stays in the doorway, hands in the pockets of her jeans. “You’re the new counselor?”
“Yeah,” Claire tells her, remembering what she was there for, and motioning to the chair across from her. “You can have a seat.”
“I don’t even need to be here, you know.” Alex replies, taking a seat even so. “They just put me in here because I had a few classes with those girls. I never even really talked to them.” Which would explain why, in comparison to what Claire has seen today, Alex seems remarkably unaffected.
“Are you sure you’re not just trying to get out of here and go home?” Claire asks, having already had this experience with one of the students who had passed through her office.
“Sort of. But really, there’s nothing for me to talk about. The school’s just doing this to cover their own butts.” Claire is inclined to not believe her, but she seems too relaxed, too indifferent about it, to be lying.
So Claire puts down her file, lets go of any ideas she had about actually counseling this girl, and instead settles for just catching up. “How’s your mom?”
“She’s good. She’s teaching French at the Foreign Service Institute over in Arlington. The government made her go through this whole thing, which is why we’re living here.” Alex leans back in her chair, put at ease by the change in topics to something more of small talk.
“What did they want?” Claire asks, interested. This is stuff she hasn’t yet heard. People don’t really keep in touch with Danielle or Alex. They’re kind of a separate branch, since they’re not really survivors of the same crash.
“They just had a bunch of questions to ask her. I guess it had to do with why she was originally on the island and some things that transpired while she was there.” Alex shrugs. “She didn’t really talk about it with me a lot.”
“How’s your relationship with your mom?” She’s shifting back into counselor mode again. She’s got to watch that.
“Strained, but it’s...it’s okay. There’s just a lot of time to make up for, you know?”
She thinks of her own relationship with Jack, this newfound half-brother of hers, how uncomfortable that had been. She left to avoid it. At least Alex was still here trying to get over that roadblock. Then again the bond between mother and daughter was way stronger than that of the relationship she had to Jack. They were related but just not as closely. Not close enough to make it of any importance.
“So how have you been?” Alex asks, to be polite.
“I’m um...I’m fine. I was on my way up north and my car stalled so I kind of...got stuck here.” She’s trying to answer her question without going into detail, without really answering it.
”When did that happen?”
“August.” She admits.
“And you haven’t...I mean is it still broken?”
“No I just haven’t gotten around to going anywhere yet.” Claire pauses, tries to find words. “Truth is I wasn’t really going anywhere, I was just...restless. So I figure I’ll stay here until I figure out where it is that I’m actually going.”
“I’ve always wanted to see snow.” Alex tells her, randomly. “I didn’t see it on the island and then it hasn’t snowed here either. If it wasn’t for my mom I’d be in like New York or something. They get a lot right?”
“Yeah.” Claire confirms, an idea forming in her head.
“One of the girls in my class, she’s from New York City, and she says there’s no place better around the holidays. So maybe I’ll get there sometime soon.”
“Maybe.” Claire replies, thinking about the snow she hasn’t really seen all that much of, and the upcoming holidays. New York City, with all it’s people, it’s easy to get lost there right? Right now that’s what she wants, to just fall off the radar, just disappear from everyone else’s sight. “Hopefully.”
Claire doesn’t say much more and Alex waits for a minute or so, before she finally says, “Anyway, it’s getting late, so if it’s okay with you I think I’m going to go.”
“Yeah, alright.” Claire snaps out of it right then and there. “It was nice seeing you again Alex.”
“Yeah, you too.” Alex replies, and Claire thinks she might actually mean it. She rises, goes to the door, but turns back as she’s about to leave with a, “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
And Claire hadn’t seen that coming. This girl, she thinks, is wiser than any seventeen year old has the right to be, as she watches her close the door quietly behind her.
Thing is, Claire has found something she was looking for, and in a way she owes it to Alex.
She’s found a direction.
Part 4