trans_9 | You saw, as always, clearer than me [closed]

Claire had ducked into the conference room to sort through a few things and hadn't actually expected anyone to wander in on her. Especially not Steve. She hadn't seen much of the teenager lately, which she'd taken as meaning he was getting out there and hopefully making friends. When he got her attention she smiled, clicking out of what she was doing on her omnicomm and setting it down on the table next to her.

"Not at all! What's up, Steve?"

Well, that and avoiding her at all costs.

Steve smiled and even dogs could have noticed how nervous he was. "Oh, good." Then he didn't elaborate exactly why it was good for a moment.

All right. Stay calm. Deep breath. He felt a painful twinge in his chest. Oh, fuck off, Veronica. You're the last thing I need to worry about right now. "I gotta ask you something," he finally clarified his earlier statement. "And it's... it's kind of dumb, but it's been bugging me." Try late nights of insomnia "bugging me."

She sensed something was up, which put her a little on guard, but she was subtle enough about her wariness that he hopefully wouldn't notice.

"Okay, sure," she replied, pulling herself up to sit on the table, tilting her head slightly. "Fire away." Even if she had a feeling she didn't really want to be having this conversation, she didn't exactly have any way to escape.

Claire might have wondered if he completely forgot what he was going to ask her, because Steve appeared to have frozen in place. He was staring down at the table, tapping his fingers nervously against the surface of it.

"This is gonna sound really stupid," he said again. "But you know I don't remember a lot from, uh... from Antarctica." And that was true. All he had after the front seat of that snow CAT was a series of blurry images, bright lights, and unfamiliar voices. Then pain.

It was like someone flipped the switch from "stutter" to "ramble." "And I don't remember exactly what happened. I mean, I know what happened, you already told me all that, but I don't exactly remember when... when I died. Like... the moment right before, you know? And I figure I'm never going to get over it if I don't stop obsessing over it, so..."

God, could he have picked a more roundabout approach for this. And why did he have to talk about his own death, anyway? Like she really wanted to revisit that again. Now he was desperate to back up. "Agh, this is stupid. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up," he said way too hastily to really mean it.

Her expression sobered as he rambled, and she furrowed her brow a little. She knew what he was getting at, or trying to get at. She had a feeling things weren't as foggy as he said they were, although she didn't have much reason to suspect that one way or another. Still...

"It's not stupid to want to know about your last moments, Steve," she replied quietly, her eyes soft on him. She didn't know if she particularly wanted to relay this information to him, but it was his, too. There were some things she would never tell him for his own good, but this wouldn't be one of those things.

"It is stupid, because that really doesn't have anything to do with..." he drifted off. It was not a good sign that he was already having trouble looking her in the eye, keeping very much focused on the table.

He was also starting to sound more than a little frustrated with himself. Why did this go so much more smoothly when he'd been rehearsing it a thousand times the day before? "Look, just--" he groaned. "Did I... did I say anything?" He already knew the answer and he knew she did too, but he was sort of hoping maybe she'd forgotten. Or that she'd lie and he could just get out of here before he embarrassed himself any further.

Yup. This was about exactly what she'd been afraid of. She felt a heavy lump settle in her stomach, while she attempted to swallow and clear her throat.

"Yeah, you talked a little, but you were in a lot of pain. I don't think you really knew what you were saying." She remembered very vividly every single word he'd said to her before he'd died. They'd been words that had haunted her for months after her escape from Antarctica, and it had taken her a long time to get to the point where she'd been able to rationalize why he'd said what he did before dying.

Steve's chest ached again, but he took a deep breath and forced it away. Okay, this wasn't so bad. She did remember. But hoping she'd forgotten was stupid anyway. Having a kid die in your arms was probably something that stuck with you, how the hell would you ever forget something like that?

But she hadn't said it. So he didn't have to say it either. That made things easier. Nowhere near ideal and still really hard, but easier.

"Um..." All right. Screw it. "Yeah. I think... I think I did."

She glanced up at him, her eyes having drifted down to her lap.

"Steve, what is this about?" Things were always a measure of awkward between them, but she didn't know how this would affect her friendship with him.

Well, so much for the comfortable avoidance. His face went tense and he bit his lip. This was so frustrating. He'd psyched himself up for this and everything, but if he had to rate the conversation so far on a scale from one to ten, he'd probably put down "total disaster."

"Isn't it obvious?" he muttered under his breath. "I'm pretty damn bad at being subtle..."

Claire's flight instinct was kicking in big time, but she stayed rooted to the spot, slowly exhaling and tilting her head back to look at the ceiling.

"It's really easy to get caught up in the heat of the moment," she said slowly. Honestly unless he came right out and said it she didn't know if she could.

The frustration caught up with him and he very nearly snapped at her. "Heat of the moment? I was dying!"

As soon as he'd said it he regretted it and quite frankly wanted to smack himself for losing his composure. Or at least what shaky composure he had. Steve caught himself and shook his head, brushing his hair out of his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I just... I didn't mean that. I'm just talking without saying anything."

After another second to get himself together, he steeled his expression and his voice. "Claire... I did mean what I said. You're-- you're really important to me. Really important." Then he actually managed to look up at her and look her in the eye. "I said I loved you, didn't I?"

Steve could try to look her in the eye, but Claire was finding it very difficult to look at him, right now. The lump in her throat tightened and worked its way up to her chest, while she looked slightly off to the side.

"Yes, you did." And she'd been trying very hard to avoid this.

Now Steve was watching her very closely, looking for some kind of indication from her. Anything that might have been a sign to the contrary of her body language. Though he knew deep down from the way she looked that he'd guessed right to begin with.

His expression sank a little bit and he slowly turned away, staring down at the surface of the table. "Let me guess," he said softly. "I'm... just kidding myself."

Claire closed her eyes, shaking her head minutely.

"You're very important to me, Steve. But, with the age difference and-" she hesitated at what to say next, opening her eyes again and continuing to look down at the floor, "-everything else. I don't feel the same way."

"Because I died," he said, trying to fill in the blanks that "everything else" left open. As if he didn't intensely hate the circumstances enough already. But he couldn't really blame her, he supposed. He was only 17 and hell, for all he knew, he might be stuck at 17 for the rest of his life. Of course she wouldn't be interested in him.

Steve had the feeling the whole wave of anger and sadness had yet to really sink in. It was being masked pretty well by embarrassment. He took the opportunity to turn away entirely so she couldn't see the look on his face or how red it was.

"I'm such an idiot," he muttered.

His death wasn't so much what she meant, but it was at least some of the everything else. She sighed softly, looking over at his back when he turned away.

"You're not an idiot, Steve." She was scrambling for things to try to make this a little less awkward, of course it was entirely unlikely she'd succeed at all. "Honestly, I'm flattered. But I'm not... really emotionally available right now." She thought that was safe, until she realized that he might take that as to mean that could change in the future. "Or at all, really."

Steve let out a deep breath and put a hand on his forehead like he was getting a headache. "Because you're with Leon," he filled in. There wasn't any doubt in his mind that's what she meant. Honestly, he didn't know how he'd remained unsure about it up to this point (aside from straight denial, of course.) They had a kid together, after all.

"You don't have to make excuses. I'm not a kid. I get it, okay?" He folded his arms over his chest. "I just... I'm stupid. I'm a total idiot. I don't know why I thought..."

"It's not just because I'm with Leon." Notice that she's not actually denying it or unsure about her relationship with Leon, anymore. She exhaled through her nose, reaching up to rub her forehead.

"Even if I wasn't dating anyone... I don't feel the same way about you that you do for me. You're like... my little brother."

Steve felt a another twinge in his chest, accompanied by a swell of sudden anger. She was with Leon? Why the hell didn't she say something before? It would have saved him a lot of grief and a lot of feeling like he'd just sacrificed his pride for no reason. He'd rather have just suffered out rejection in silence than have come in here and made himself look like a jackass. But he didn't want to say anything about it to her. He didn't want to lose control of his emotions. The fact he hadn't already run off or burst into tears was the only shred of dignity he felt he had left in this conversation, and he was going to hold onto it, goddammit.

Besides. He wasn't about to start whining about Leon. He didn't want to think about Leon at all. This was about him and Claire.

Steve yanked out one of the chairs and sank down into it, very pointedly facing in the opposite direction of where she was. "Your little brother?" he repeated quietly, and then he had to shake off that kick in the ego, too. Claire obviously didn't mean it in a bad way. But god, was he sick of being seen as a kid.

Claire could tell she'd hurt him, and furrowed her brow, dropping her hand.

"You're an important part of my life, Steve. And I consider you a part of my family." She didn't mean to make him feel like she looked down on him as a child. Because while she did have a strong impulse to protect him, it wasn't in the same sense as the way she felt she needed to protect Sherry.

His shoulders tensed up and he lowered his head, as though he was afraid she'd be able to see his face. Claire's words seemed to sink through him, and he folded his arms tightly over his chest.

After an uncomfortably long pause, he spoke so quietly it was hard to tell if he meant to address her or not. "You really think I'm... part of your family?"

"Without a doubt." Claire smiled a little, although it didn't quite touch her eyes, glancing down and placing her hands on either side of her legs on the table.

"I don't really expect you to be totally okay with me right now, and I should have just... let you down earlier, but I hope you'll be able to eventually forgive me, because you mean too much to me for me to lose you, Steve."

Steve didn't move or give any indication that he'd heard her for a couple moments, trying and failing to come up with the magic words that would just halt this conversation and drain the awkward out of it and let them both go on and pretend it never happened. It might have been the only way he'd be able to look her in the eye for a while.

"I'm... I'm not mad at you," he said quietly. That wasn't precisely true, but he was far angrier at the situation at large that put him in this horrible, hopeless position. At himself, for ever thinking he had a shot. At Leon, irrationally, for being everything he wasn't and would never be.

He somehow had the mind to say something else, so she wouldn't make him clarify. Unfortunately, all his thoughts at the moment were pretty dismal. "How am I your family? I'm just... some kid. You only knew me for one day," he murmured. "You don't have to say things just to make me feel better, okay?"

Claire sighed, rolling her eyes to the ceiling.

"It's been three months, Steve. On top of that one day. You saved my life then, you've helped me here, you saved my little girl's life-" she shook her head, looking over at the back of his head. "And on top of that, you're a great guy. I like talking to you, learning more about who you are." She tilted her head to the side, slightly.

"When I say you're a part of my family, I'm not saying it just to make you feel better. Family is very important to me, and when I say you're a part of mine- I mean it."

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