through the haze (nathan/claire, peter/claire)
Title: Through the Haze
Pairing: Nathan/Claire, Peter/Claire. Canon.
Rating: PG-13 for language, themes.
Status: 1/1, Complete. 3000 words. Spoilers through 2x01
Summary: Peter’s gone and Nathan’s broken. Claire can be the strong one now.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
-----
So she still had a Nathan - not a father because she already had one of those and always would.
“Your father is still alive,” said her grandmother, and Claire could hear the frown through the phone.
“He’s alive?”
“More or less.”
“Peter?” Claire asked with a hitch.
“No,” was the tight-lipped response. “We have to be grateful for what we have.”
Her grandmother paused, waiting for her to say something. Sorry. Nothing to say, and it wasn’t like she didn’t want to speak. Just that she couldn’t.
Nathan was hurt. In a hospital. Not talking to anyone. Claire was unreasonably pissed that she wouldn’t be asked for when he did feel like talking.
-----
Nothing, nothing, no news. Heidi answered his phone when she called it. Claire hated the c-word but that’s what Heidi was, to her.
“Claire, I really don’t think you should continue to call this phone,” said Heidi crisply. “He’ll call you if he wants to see you. Right now he just wants his family.”
-----
“I miss him, Dad.” She cried one night at the dinner table over her trig homework - an odd place for a break down to occur but that’s where it happens.
Her dad was helping her with her homework. One minute she was punching numbers into her calculator, and the next…big blurry drops were puddling on the dining room table.
“I miss him.” Her father put one hand on her back.
“I know you miss him, Claire Bear. He was good to you. He took care of you.”
“Yeah, he did.” She wiped the tears off of her nose with one finger.
He thinks she’s crying over Peter, and she is…but it’s more than that.
-----
Two months and it was still nothing, nothing, but she still called twice a week, then three, until she was calling every damn day. Wasn’t it supposed to fade? Wasn’t she supposed to start caring less and less? Start calling less, then just give up?
Heidi only got colder on the phone. “Not here, Claire,” and she drew out the vowels in her name till it was a sneer.
-----
She got a plain white envelope - heavy vellum with her proper name on the front. Swirling, cobwebby cursive that screamed old lady
Claire -
Why don’t you join us for a weekend? It really has been too long. Your family would love to see you.
Fondly,
Your Grandmother
What a joke. Still…
Her dad told her it was a bad idea, and she completely agreed, but she went anyway, because that’s what family does.
She thought about many stupid things - bugs into a zapper, sheep off a cliff, moth to a flame. But at least she understood the lure of the burn.
-----
She took the red eye because that is what the ticket said and she wasn’t in a position to complain. Her father dropped her off at the airport with a hug and the reassurance that no matter what happened, she was just a credit card swipe away.
He tucked cash into her coat and told her to enjoy herself. And if she couldn’t do that, at the very least she should try to find some closure.
She hugged him tightly and felt her shoulders stiffen with the Bennet/Butler/What-the-fuck-ever strength.
-----
She landed in the cool minutes before dawn. No one met her at the airport. Not that she waited or even expected someone to.
Peter would have come. Peter would have spun her around in the airport and taken her out for breakfast. He would have pulled her hair gently and poked her in the waist and he would have asked her all about her life and he would have cared about the answers.
Peter was gone now.
The cabby asked with a croaking voice, “Where to?”
She surprised herself when she heard herself say “Lower East Side,” instead of “Hyde Park”.
-----
Peter’s apartment was just like she remembered. It was dark and the door was unlocked, like it always had been before.
It smelled faintly of cologne and his leather couches - god, but she remembered that smell. It made her want to cry but this trip was not going to be about tears.
“Nathan?” His name was feather light on her lips, and that was when she realised that he was there.
She wasn't expecting an answer but she was still disappointed when she didn't get one. She stepped into the apartment, her feet softly shuffling over the smooth wooden panels.
He was facing away from her, toward the picture window. Daylight was peeking through the haze of clouds - the clouds she’d been soaring through less than an hour ago.
“Nathan.”
Orange and yellow light poured through the window, outlining the loose tousle of his hair. It burned the dark curls into a ruddy amber (so dark and she’s blonde and it doesn’t make sense).
Dawn broke over his silhouette. She watched his slim hand as he raised it to his chin.
“Do you think it looks like that sky?” That familiar snap of authority was eradicated from his voice. What was left was a deep murmur that worried her more than anything else.
“What looks like what sky?” She still couldn’t see his face, somehow couldn’t bring herself to walk over and face him.
“The sunrise. It looks like…it makes it looks like it did that night, doesn’t it? That night with him?” He turned to face her at that, and it stole her breath. His broken eyes, searching her face for…something.
She saw his jaw clench and she choked back a sob (bites it back because she’s strong for him).
And then she ran over to him, threw herself onto his lap. She hugged him around his middle, her hair swirling over his thighs. But she didn't cry as she pressed her face into his (thinner, bonier) middle.
He exhaled and she felt his breath blow over her hair, fingertips like air trailed over the strands of her hair.
“Claire.”
-----
Her grandmother’s house was the same too, but the memories were much less pleasant.
“Your father is dealing with his guilt as best he knows how,” said her grandmother. Still the cold robot that Claire remembered.
“Guilt?”
“Yes, guilt,” said her grandmother. “That’s why you’re here. I thought you should see it yourself.”
“Why?”
“So you can know what it looks like when a Petrelli fails.”
Claire didn't respond, just blinked with shock. Were people…(people like it wasn’t a person)…were people blaming Nathan?
-----
She tidied up Peter’s place - threw back the curtains, scrubbed the sink. Nothing that actually needed to be done, but she needed the doing. .
It smelled like cleaning products now, and the musty smell of dust and uh…some sort of expensive gin were gone now. The distinct scent of a young man who wasn’t coming back remained underneath it all.
She touched everything in his apartment. Peter’s running shoes. His toothbrush. The book by his bed, with the corner still folded over, where he left it.
Peter read Westerns - had read Westerns, she meant. It made a lot of sense now, but she had always teased him about it before. She opened the book now, to the page that had a little crease in it.
She saw the words “Lost Sister” and shut the cover quickly.
-----
It was possible that Nathan had been in the hospital at some point, but she longed for some sort of physical proof that he had been too ill to pick up the phone and call her.
Liar. Liar, as he sat in Peter’s dark apartment, his chin shadowed, eyes rimmed in red.
But she wasn’t going to waste time on that. She sat on the floor, facing him, her back against the window. “I missed you.”
Nathan nodded.
“I needed you,” she said this time, with a little more heat in her voice.
“No. Not like this,” said Nathan. “I’m no good to anyone like this.”
“You could try not being like this,” said Claire sassily. He needed to hear it this way.
He laughed gravely. “I don’t know how.”
-----
“Where the crap is Heidi?” She spoke tersely into her cell phone - she’d been there three days and Heidi had yet to make an appearance at Peter’s apartment. It made Claire mad.
“What do you mean?” Her grandmother sounded distracted.
“I mean, why isn’t Heidi here taking care of him?” Him, Nathan. Who was currently asleep on the couch, which was good. He didn't sleep well, or much.
Her grandmother sighed. “As I understand it, Nathan and Heidi haven’t spoken in some time.”
Claire braced herself against the sink in the bathroom, where she’d gone to have it out with whoever and not wake Nathan up. “What?”
“They’re legally separated. She’s met someone. I don’t know. This was a long time coming…even before…well. Nathan is his father’s son. There were women. As you well know.”
Claire ignored the snipe because it didn't matter. “Who’s been looking after him then?”
Her grandmother laughed. “He hardly needs taking care of. He’s a grown man. The strongest one I know, at that.”
“Are you blind?” she all but shrieked as she clicked the phone off.
-----
She spent her last day in New York cooking. She cooked pasta and she cooked steak, manicotti and lasagna and a couple casseroles because she ran out of Italian ideas. She divided them up into containers and she played Tetris with Peter’s freezer till they all fit.
“I have to go tonight. But I made you food, okay? You should eat it.” She pointed at him with her finger. This was her job, and she was going to do it right.
He was still sitting in the chair by the window. “I will,” he said and he nodded, but Claire knew when she was being placated.
“Look. Eat it. You’re skinny. And you’re drinking too much. Stop drinking, start eating. And take a shower every day, okay? I’ll call you to remind you.”
“Heidi has my phone.” These were lame excuses, surely he knew that.
She sighed. “I know. I got you this one.” She tossed a cell phone onto his lap. “I used your name and your card - Lord knows I can’t afford to pay it for you.”
That finally seemed to rouse his eyes to hers. “No, you shouldn’t pay. That’s good. I - I’m sorry Claire, I’m just…”
She was still looking at him sternly, but her face relaxed at his expression. “Hey…”
He covered his mouth with his hand, and took a shuddering breath. “I’m just so fucked up right now, I…” His words trailed off into another deep breath, and he covered his eyes with his hand.
He spoke to her like an adult, for the first time she knew of. She reveled in that moment, tasted it like sweetness over her shoulders.
She walked over to him, slowly. She touched his forehead lightly with her fingers. He lifted his head - looked up at her with searching eyes (For what? For what?).
“I’m sorry. So sorry.”
Claire shook her head, and she bent her knees onto him, stretched her body onto his till she was curled up in his lap, her arms tight around his neck.
He had brown eyes - Peter’s eyes. Or Peter had his eyes. She drew his face to hers - till their noses were practically touching.
Her hand stayed on his jaw as she pinned him with her gaze. “You don’t need to be sorry, okay? You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't do it.”
She smoothed her fingertips over his beard. “No one blames you, Nathan. I don’t blame you.”
He said nothing, looked at her without blinking.
“You tried to help. It’s not your fault about…Peter,” said Claire.
His face crumbled into a mocking little grin. For the first time in four days, she saw the real him. She smiled at him, ignored the bitterness she saw shining out of his eyes. “There’s my Nathan.”
But then he pushed her gently off of him. His eyes burned like he did when he got mad - the old Nathan, now, the same old bastard he always was.
“It’s time for you to go, Claire.”
He wouldn’t say goodbye and really, she tried.
-----
A month of phone calls. The conversations were never long.
“Hi.”
“What’s up?” His voice was clipped and short.
“How’re you doing?” She tried to keep things light between them.
“Super busy,” he said, his tone dancing between sarcasm and truth.
“Too busy to talk to me?”
“Actually, I am. Sorry.”
-----
He didn't like her phone calls, she knew that. But he kept picking up the phone, and that was what mattered.
“Hey. We moved to California. Did your mother tell you?”
“She might have mentioned.”
Pause. Pause.
“So, um, what are you up to?” she asked.
“Keeping busy,” he said in that sarcastic tone.
A pissed off Nathan was better than what he’d been before.
-----
She kept calling because it was the right thing to do. Her job - what she was meant to do for him, now. He was lost and she could help him. He was lost but she could keep him tethered, sort of.
“Are you eating well?” she asked.
“Enough.”
“I left you a lot of stuff.”
“I saw,” he said.
More dead space. She was getting used to it, it didn't scare her like it used to.
“Have you seen Heidi?”
“Listen, Claire. Stay out of my business.”
“Well, have you?” she asked
Pause. “No. I haven’t.”
She swallowed and kept her voice light. “Maybe you should try to.”
“Why?”
“Because. Everyone needs…someone.” She needed a lot of someones, but mostly she needed someone she couldn’t have anymore.
He laughed harshly. “I don’t need anyone.”
“I do.” She spoke now as a reaction to his bitterness, and was surprised to feel the tears swell in the back of her throat as she spoke the truth. “I need you.”
The ease with which he dismissed her surprised her only a little. “No, you don’t. You’ve got a Dad. You don’t need a Nathan.”
-----
She went to school and it was just what she’d expected it would be. She’d obeyed his order not to call for almost a month. But goddamnit, this was hard. She really needed to vent, to talk to someone who would get it.
“Why are you calling me?”
A fair question. Too bad she didn't have an answer. “I don’t know. I'm not sure.”
“Don’t do it again. I gotta go.” He sounded better. More terse. More like the old Nathan. (That’s good, right? That means he’s getting better…surely). And he had answered the phone, which meant he wasn’t angry with her, or dead.
“No, wait. Listen, I know why you're doing this. I get it.” God, but she got it. “I miss him, too. I just... I need someone to talk to.”
She didn't mind being strong because that’s what he needed and that’s what Peter would’ve wanted her to do, but…“I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”
He knew the answer, but he played dumb anyway. “Do what?”
“Not be who I really am. I know that I cant be who they want me to be. And I just feel like I'm gonna…burst.” She wasn’t going to cry. Surely she didn't need to. Surely he could tell she was…hurting. That she needed him, for once.
“Look, I know you're looking for answers. We all are.” She clenched her phone to her ear, hard, his voice vibrating through her ear. She dug her nails into her thigh - prepping her mind and her body for something that was going to hurt. She waited for him to hurt her.
“But trust me. I am not the guy…to give them to you. I'm sorry.”
His words were familiar in their pain, and they jolted her. It all fell into place, like pieces of earth and sky swirling above her and she wanted laugh at the irony (Is that the proper use of the word, though? Maybe remembering would do).
-----
That night she was almost asleep when she heard the tapping on her window, and it was all happening the same way it did before..
She was fully dressed still, had been dozing on her bed. Her new bed. In her new room. In her new house, where everything was in different drawers and it creaked in odd places as it settled at night.
She walked to her window and unlocked it. Nathan was standing in the tree, one strong hand grasping the trunk.
She leaned out of her window, smiled at him gently. She spoke quietly, so she wouldn’t wake her parents. “He used to come to me too, sometimes. Did you know?”
She saw him nod in the darkness, his hair long and floppy and so fucking familiar that it breaks her heart all over again.
“I thought he never told anyone. I used to think he was ashamed of it.”
She watched him lift off of the tree - float easily over to her window. He didn't ask to come in (something Peter always had done), and for that she was grateful.
“It was like this,” she said softly.
He was in her bedroom now - tall and still too thin but it was Nathan and he was close. He reached his hand to her cheek, trailed it over her jaw, up her temple, and into her hair.
“It was just like this.”
fin.
a/n: i may pick this up again depending on where the canon of the new episodes go. written quickly so forgive mistakes please.
mucho thanks to numbereleven for the transcript part of the fic (the last phone convo between nathan and claire).
the book peter is reading is the man who shot liberty valance by dorothy johnson.
Pairing: Nathan/Claire, Peter/Claire. Canon.
Rating: PG-13 for language, themes.
Status: 1/1, Complete. 3000 words. Spoilers through 2x01
Summary: Peter’s gone and Nathan’s broken. Claire can be the strong one now.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
-----
So she still had a Nathan - not a father because she already had one of those and always would.
“Your father is still alive,” said her grandmother, and Claire could hear the frown through the phone.
“He’s alive?”
“More or less.”
“Peter?” Claire asked with a hitch.
“No,” was the tight-lipped response. “We have to be grateful for what we have.”
Her grandmother paused, waiting for her to say something. Sorry. Nothing to say, and it wasn’t like she didn’t want to speak. Just that she couldn’t.
Nathan was hurt. In a hospital. Not talking to anyone. Claire was unreasonably pissed that she wouldn’t be asked for when he did feel like talking.
-----
Nothing, nothing, no news. Heidi answered his phone when she called it. Claire hated the c-word but that’s what Heidi was, to her.
“Claire, I really don’t think you should continue to call this phone,” said Heidi crisply. “He’ll call you if he wants to see you. Right now he just wants his family.”
-----
“I miss him, Dad.” She cried one night at the dinner table over her trig homework - an odd place for a break down to occur but that’s where it happens.
Her dad was helping her with her homework. One minute she was punching numbers into her calculator, and the next…big blurry drops were puddling on the dining room table.
“I miss him.” Her father put one hand on her back.
“I know you miss him, Claire Bear. He was good to you. He took care of you.”
“Yeah, he did.” She wiped the tears off of her nose with one finger.
He thinks she’s crying over Peter, and she is…but it’s more than that.
-----
Two months and it was still nothing, nothing, but she still called twice a week, then three, until she was calling every damn day. Wasn’t it supposed to fade? Wasn’t she supposed to start caring less and less? Start calling less, then just give up?
Heidi only got colder on the phone. “Not here, Claire,” and she drew out the vowels in her name till it was a sneer.
-----
She got a plain white envelope - heavy vellum with her proper name on the front. Swirling, cobwebby cursive that screamed old lady
Claire -
Why don’t you join us for a weekend? It really has been too long. Your family would love to see you.
Fondly,
Your Grandmother
What a joke. Still…
Her dad told her it was a bad idea, and she completely agreed, but she went anyway, because that’s what family does.
She thought about many stupid things - bugs into a zapper, sheep off a cliff, moth to a flame. But at least she understood the lure of the burn.
-----
She took the red eye because that is what the ticket said and she wasn’t in a position to complain. Her father dropped her off at the airport with a hug and the reassurance that no matter what happened, she was just a credit card swipe away.
He tucked cash into her coat and told her to enjoy herself. And if she couldn’t do that, at the very least she should try to find some closure.
She hugged him tightly and felt her shoulders stiffen with the Bennet/Butler/What-the-fuck-ever strength.
-----
She landed in the cool minutes before dawn. No one met her at the airport. Not that she waited or even expected someone to.
Peter would have come. Peter would have spun her around in the airport and taken her out for breakfast. He would have pulled her hair gently and poked her in the waist and he would have asked her all about her life and he would have cared about the answers.
Peter was gone now.
The cabby asked with a croaking voice, “Where to?”
She surprised herself when she heard herself say “Lower East Side,” instead of “Hyde Park”.
-----
Peter’s apartment was just like she remembered. It was dark and the door was unlocked, like it always had been before.
It smelled faintly of cologne and his leather couches - god, but she remembered that smell. It made her want to cry but this trip was not going to be about tears.
“Nathan?” His name was feather light on her lips, and that was when she realised that he was there.
She wasn't expecting an answer but she was still disappointed when she didn't get one. She stepped into the apartment, her feet softly shuffling over the smooth wooden panels.
He was facing away from her, toward the picture window. Daylight was peeking through the haze of clouds - the clouds she’d been soaring through less than an hour ago.
“Nathan.”
Orange and yellow light poured through the window, outlining the loose tousle of his hair. It burned the dark curls into a ruddy amber (so dark and she’s blonde and it doesn’t make sense).
Dawn broke over his silhouette. She watched his slim hand as he raised it to his chin.
“Do you think it looks like that sky?” That familiar snap of authority was eradicated from his voice. What was left was a deep murmur that worried her more than anything else.
“What looks like what sky?” She still couldn’t see his face, somehow couldn’t bring herself to walk over and face him.
“The sunrise. It looks like…it makes it looks like it did that night, doesn’t it? That night with him?” He turned to face her at that, and it stole her breath. His broken eyes, searching her face for…something.
She saw his jaw clench and she choked back a sob (bites it back because she’s strong for him).
And then she ran over to him, threw herself onto his lap. She hugged him around his middle, her hair swirling over his thighs. But she didn't cry as she pressed her face into his (thinner, bonier) middle.
He exhaled and she felt his breath blow over her hair, fingertips like air trailed over the strands of her hair.
“Claire.”
-----
Her grandmother’s house was the same too, but the memories were much less pleasant.
“Your father is dealing with his guilt as best he knows how,” said her grandmother. Still the cold robot that Claire remembered.
“Guilt?”
“Yes, guilt,” said her grandmother. “That’s why you’re here. I thought you should see it yourself.”
“Why?”
“So you can know what it looks like when a Petrelli fails.”
Claire didn't respond, just blinked with shock. Were people…(people like it wasn’t a person)…were people blaming Nathan?
-----
She tidied up Peter’s place - threw back the curtains, scrubbed the sink. Nothing that actually needed to be done, but she needed the doing. .
It smelled like cleaning products now, and the musty smell of dust and uh…some sort of expensive gin were gone now. The distinct scent of a young man who wasn’t coming back remained underneath it all.
She touched everything in his apartment. Peter’s running shoes. His toothbrush. The book by his bed, with the corner still folded over, where he left it.
Peter read Westerns - had read Westerns, she meant. It made a lot of sense now, but she had always teased him about it before. She opened the book now, to the page that had a little crease in it.
She saw the words “Lost Sister” and shut the cover quickly.
-----
It was possible that Nathan had been in the hospital at some point, but she longed for some sort of physical proof that he had been too ill to pick up the phone and call her.
Liar. Liar, as he sat in Peter’s dark apartment, his chin shadowed, eyes rimmed in red.
But she wasn’t going to waste time on that. She sat on the floor, facing him, her back against the window. “I missed you.”
Nathan nodded.
“I needed you,” she said this time, with a little more heat in her voice.
“No. Not like this,” said Nathan. “I’m no good to anyone like this.”
“You could try not being like this,” said Claire sassily. He needed to hear it this way.
He laughed gravely. “I don’t know how.”
-----
“Where the crap is Heidi?” She spoke tersely into her cell phone - she’d been there three days and Heidi had yet to make an appearance at Peter’s apartment. It made Claire mad.
“What do you mean?” Her grandmother sounded distracted.
“I mean, why isn’t Heidi here taking care of him?” Him, Nathan. Who was currently asleep on the couch, which was good. He didn't sleep well, or much.
Her grandmother sighed. “As I understand it, Nathan and Heidi haven’t spoken in some time.”
Claire braced herself against the sink in the bathroom, where she’d gone to have it out with whoever and not wake Nathan up. “What?”
“They’re legally separated. She’s met someone. I don’t know. This was a long time coming…even before…well. Nathan is his father’s son. There were women. As you well know.”
Claire ignored the snipe because it didn't matter. “Who’s been looking after him then?”
Her grandmother laughed. “He hardly needs taking care of. He’s a grown man. The strongest one I know, at that.”
“Are you blind?” she all but shrieked as she clicked the phone off.
-----
She spent her last day in New York cooking. She cooked pasta and she cooked steak, manicotti and lasagna and a couple casseroles because she ran out of Italian ideas. She divided them up into containers and she played Tetris with Peter’s freezer till they all fit.
“I have to go tonight. But I made you food, okay? You should eat it.” She pointed at him with her finger. This was her job, and she was going to do it right.
He was still sitting in the chair by the window. “I will,” he said and he nodded, but Claire knew when she was being placated.
“Look. Eat it. You’re skinny. And you’re drinking too much. Stop drinking, start eating. And take a shower every day, okay? I’ll call you to remind you.”
“Heidi has my phone.” These were lame excuses, surely he knew that.
She sighed. “I know. I got you this one.” She tossed a cell phone onto his lap. “I used your name and your card - Lord knows I can’t afford to pay it for you.”
That finally seemed to rouse his eyes to hers. “No, you shouldn’t pay. That’s good. I - I’m sorry Claire, I’m just…”
She was still looking at him sternly, but her face relaxed at his expression. “Hey…”
He covered his mouth with his hand, and took a shuddering breath. “I’m just so fucked up right now, I…” His words trailed off into another deep breath, and he covered his eyes with his hand.
He spoke to her like an adult, for the first time she knew of. She reveled in that moment, tasted it like sweetness over her shoulders.
She walked over to him, slowly. She touched his forehead lightly with her fingers. He lifted his head - looked up at her with searching eyes (For what? For what?).
“I’m sorry. So sorry.”
Claire shook her head, and she bent her knees onto him, stretched her body onto his till she was curled up in his lap, her arms tight around his neck.
He had brown eyes - Peter’s eyes. Or Peter had his eyes. She drew his face to hers - till their noses were practically touching.
Her hand stayed on his jaw as she pinned him with her gaze. “You don’t need to be sorry, okay? You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't do it.”
She smoothed her fingertips over his beard. “No one blames you, Nathan. I don’t blame you.”
He said nothing, looked at her without blinking.
“You tried to help. It’s not your fault about…Peter,” said Claire.
His face crumbled into a mocking little grin. For the first time in four days, she saw the real him. She smiled at him, ignored the bitterness she saw shining out of his eyes. “There’s my Nathan.”
But then he pushed her gently off of him. His eyes burned like he did when he got mad - the old Nathan, now, the same old bastard he always was.
“It’s time for you to go, Claire.”
He wouldn’t say goodbye and really, she tried.
-----
A month of phone calls. The conversations were never long.
“Hi.”
“What’s up?” His voice was clipped and short.
“How’re you doing?” She tried to keep things light between them.
“Super busy,” he said, his tone dancing between sarcasm and truth.
“Too busy to talk to me?”
“Actually, I am. Sorry.”
-----
He didn't like her phone calls, she knew that. But he kept picking up the phone, and that was what mattered.
“Hey. We moved to California. Did your mother tell you?”
“She might have mentioned.”
Pause. Pause.
“So, um, what are you up to?” she asked.
“Keeping busy,” he said in that sarcastic tone.
A pissed off Nathan was better than what he’d been before.
-----
She kept calling because it was the right thing to do. Her job - what she was meant to do for him, now. He was lost and she could help him. He was lost but she could keep him tethered, sort of.
“Are you eating well?” she asked.
“Enough.”
“I left you a lot of stuff.”
“I saw,” he said.
More dead space. She was getting used to it, it didn't scare her like it used to.
“Have you seen Heidi?”
“Listen, Claire. Stay out of my business.”
“Well, have you?” she asked
Pause. “No. I haven’t.”
She swallowed and kept her voice light. “Maybe you should try to.”
“Why?”
“Because. Everyone needs…someone.” She needed a lot of someones, but mostly she needed someone she couldn’t have anymore.
He laughed harshly. “I don’t need anyone.”
“I do.” She spoke now as a reaction to his bitterness, and was surprised to feel the tears swell in the back of her throat as she spoke the truth. “I need you.”
The ease with which he dismissed her surprised her only a little. “No, you don’t. You’ve got a Dad. You don’t need a Nathan.”
-----
She went to school and it was just what she’d expected it would be. She’d obeyed his order not to call for almost a month. But goddamnit, this was hard. She really needed to vent, to talk to someone who would get it.
“Why are you calling me?”
A fair question. Too bad she didn't have an answer. “I don’t know. I'm not sure.”
“Don’t do it again. I gotta go.” He sounded better. More terse. More like the old Nathan. (That’s good, right? That means he’s getting better…surely). And he had answered the phone, which meant he wasn’t angry with her, or dead.
“No, wait. Listen, I know why you're doing this. I get it.” God, but she got it. “I miss him, too. I just... I need someone to talk to.”
She didn't mind being strong because that’s what he needed and that’s what Peter would’ve wanted her to do, but…“I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”
He knew the answer, but he played dumb anyway. “Do what?”
“Not be who I really am. I know that I cant be who they want me to be. And I just feel like I'm gonna…burst.” She wasn’t going to cry. Surely she didn't need to. Surely he could tell she was…hurting. That she needed him, for once.
“Look, I know you're looking for answers. We all are.” She clenched her phone to her ear, hard, his voice vibrating through her ear. She dug her nails into her thigh - prepping her mind and her body for something that was going to hurt. She waited for him to hurt her.
“But trust me. I am not the guy…to give them to you. I'm sorry.”
His words were familiar in their pain, and they jolted her. It all fell into place, like pieces of earth and sky swirling above her and she wanted laugh at the irony (Is that the proper use of the word, though? Maybe remembering would do).
-----
That night she was almost asleep when she heard the tapping on her window, and it was all happening the same way it did before..
She was fully dressed still, had been dozing on her bed. Her new bed. In her new room. In her new house, where everything was in different drawers and it creaked in odd places as it settled at night.
She walked to her window and unlocked it. Nathan was standing in the tree, one strong hand grasping the trunk.
She leaned out of her window, smiled at him gently. She spoke quietly, so she wouldn’t wake her parents. “He used to come to me too, sometimes. Did you know?”
She saw him nod in the darkness, his hair long and floppy and so fucking familiar that it breaks her heart all over again.
“I thought he never told anyone. I used to think he was ashamed of it.”
She watched him lift off of the tree - float easily over to her window. He didn't ask to come in (something Peter always had done), and for that she was grateful.
“It was like this,” she said softly.
He was in her bedroom now - tall and still too thin but it was Nathan and he was close. He reached his hand to her cheek, trailed it over her jaw, up her temple, and into her hair.
“It was just like this.”
fin.
a/n: i may pick this up again depending on where the canon of the new episodes go. written quickly so forgive mistakes please.
mucho thanks to numbereleven for the transcript part of the fic (the last phone convo between nathan and claire).
the book peter is reading is the man who shot liberty valance by dorothy johnson.