So Long

Claire wakes before Niall, staring at the ceiling as her body reflexively tenses up. The heavy weight of his arm across her belly prevents her from moving, his leg thrown over hers, and her arm has gone slightly numb and tingly with the pressure of his head on her shoulder. She breathes out slowly, wonders if she can disconnect him from her without startling him awake. When he grumbles in his sleep and shifts closer, she knows it’s not an option. The pillow he’d held while he fell asleep is at the end of the bed, and Claire wiggles her toes in an effort to bring it up to her; instead, it slides off the end of the mattress. Damn it.

The clock on the bedside table says it’s just after five. Claire hesitates, wondering how badly she needs to pee, then closes her eyes. She might as well get some more sleep, since it doesn’t seem like Niall’s octopus routine is going to end any time soon.

She’s dragged from her sleep by the soft press of lips to her temple. Sighing, she buries her face into the pillow, then jerks back in surprise, eyes flying open. The other side of the bed is empty, her hand reaching for someone who’s no longer there, and she rubs her fingers over her eyes as she sits up. Niall comes into view, and Claire is almost disappointed to see he’s already dressed for the day. Tim’s words echo in her mind, but her tongue feels like lead in her mouth; she can’t even say a simple good morning right now, let alone everything she feels. So she merely waves shortly at Niall before pushing herself out of bed.

Claire washes her hands after using the toilet then stares at her reflection in the mirror. The ghost of the kiss still lingers on her skin. Her fingers tremble as she touches the spot she could’ve sworn she felt lips, but the only person in the room with her was Niall, and he wouldn’t have done that. It hurts to accept that it was all her imagination, just the remnants of a dream haunting her as she woke up. She changes into a pair of leggings and her purple tunic, tying off the ribbons in the back to cinch the shirt in under her bust, then gets to work brushing the knots out of her hair. Once it’s pulled into a bun, she brushes her teeth and shoves the hygiene products back into the bag.

Niall doesn’t look at her as she returns to the main room, too focused on the phone in his hands, and Claire swallows down the confusion and packs everything away in her duffel. The scratch of the zipper sounds so loud in the silence of the room, but she can barely hear it over the crashing sound of her heart falling to pieces.

“Storm’s passed, so we should be able to get out of here soon.”

She nods though she doesn’t take her attention off her hands as she starts making the bed; she needs to do something, anything, to keep her mind from replaying all that has happened in the last twelve hours. Unfortunately, there’s not much to do when one is in a hotel room with someone they’re attracted to but has no chance with, so Claire finishes up with the task and turns to her boss.

“Ready to go?”

“Yeah.”

The ride to the ground floor is silent and tense; Claire’s skin burns with the desire to touch while the voice in her head screams for her to run. Niall keeps his eyes trained on the numbers above the door as they light up with each floor they pass. Her head swims more the longer she’s stuck inhaling the scent of him, the aroma she’s never been able to find anywhere else. She stares at their foggy reflections in the walls of the elevator, her fingernail tapping against the metal railing that she grips tightly to. The tap-tap-tap annoys even her, but she can’t stop - until Niall’s hand presses against hers, holds her fingers still. She flashes him an apologetic smile, though he doesn’t see it.

“Where’d you learn sign language?” he asks out of nowhere, and she jerks in the seat, turns her gaze away from the dark clouds outside the airport windows.

“Uh, I had a friend in grade school who was born deaf. He and I wanted to be able to communicate without having to write everything down, so he and his aide taught me.”

“And your brother?”

“He helped quiz me every day on things I learned so I wouldn’t forget. Without him, I probably wouldn’t be nearly as fluent.”

Niall stares at her, blue eyes dark with something she can’t identify. “You continue to surprise me.”

“I’m... sorry?”

“Don’t be. It’s a good thing.”

Claire waits for more, but it seems as if he’s said all he wants to. So she settles back in her seat and waits for their flight to be announced. The next two hours pass by agonisingly slow, and by the time they start boarding, Claire feels like she’s about to vibrate out of her skin. She’s tried, so many times, to start a conversation with Niall, to say anything to make him laugh like she did last night, but her mouth hadn’t wanted to cooperate, so she’d sat there in that hard chair and stared down at her feet the entire time.

Being trapped in the seat next to him on the plane isn’t any easier. In fact, it’s a million times harder. Whereas in the airport she could get up and walk around when her nerves and the uncomfortable situation got to her, here she can’t. Not unless she wants to repeatedly climb over his lap as she gets in and out of her seat. Her mind races as she stares out the small window, and her knee bounces the entire time; Niall doesn’t stop her fidgeting this time. She wonders what that means.

The sole of her flats scuff across the floor as she joins Niall in the kitchen, laptop in one hand, work phone in the other. Her eyes skim over the email that’s just come in. “Okay, so the business lunch has been rescheduled for tomorrow, but that’s fine, since tomorrow was a recuperation day anyway. That’s all until Wednesday, when you have to -”

“I know what I have scheduled for Wednesday,” he snaps out, and she finally looks up at him; his shoulders are tight, but then he sighs, and his muscles go loose. “Sorry, I’m just... I’m tired. Go home, Claire. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Niall?”

“Goodnight, Claire.”

He doesn’t look at her even though he has to be able to feel her staring. After a moment, it sinks in that somehow, Claire has done something wrong and he isn’t going to speak any more. She nods to herself, pivoting on her heel, and heads toward the foyer, slipping the laptop into the messenger bag and the phones into her purse. The house stays silent except for her footsteps, and she closes the door behind her. She has so many questions to ask. Only one person can give her the answers, and he’s just sent her away. She slides into the driver’s seat of her car and stares up at the house in front of her. Her phone buzzes in the pocket of her purse, and she instinctively reaches for it. Hot shame courses through her as she reads the text from Tim; she feels like an utter fool for hoping it would be Niall.

>> BBQ my house this wknd u in?

<< I’ll check my schedule.

>> Talk to me belle

<< I’ll call you when I get home

Claire tosses the phone into the passenger seat, gives the house one last look, then pulls away. Theories swirl around in her mind, but none of them seem to fit properly. There was nothing odd about Niall’s behaviour prior to them landing in Los Angeles and heading back to his house. Well, nothing that she couldn’t have just chalked up to him being exhausted - him not stopping her fidgeting on the plane? He was probably too tired to waste that energy. Him not speaking to her in the hotel room before they left? He was most likely just concerned with getting to the airport and catching the flight back to California. But him sending her away an hour after he got settled in at home and snapping at her is something she can’t explain.

Inexplicably, tears prick painfully at her eyes, and Claire blinks them away rapidly. This isn’t something she can handle right now. So she focuses all her attention on not dying at the hands of the other drivers, inattentive and speeding like always. She’s only a few minutes from her apartment when she decides an enormous, fattening, sweet-enough-to-send-her-into-a-diabetic-coma sundae is in order, so she signals to take the exit and makes her way out of the hustle and bustle of LA traffic and into the quieter streets of a sprawling town on the outskirts.

“Hey, there’s my favourite girl.”

“Ma, you’re too kind.”

Edna leans against the counter, staring with narrowed eyes as Claire approaches the stools. “Darling girl, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Claire laughs softly, raises her hands in surrender. “I’m just tired. Got snowed in in New York last night and didn’t get to sleep until real late, then woke up too early. That’s all.”

“If you’re sure. So I guess this means you don’t want the Belle of the Bowl, then?”

“If you dare keep that from me, Ma, I will riot, and it won’t be pretty.”

Edna sets the large bowl in front of Claire with a smile and ambles off to talk to Gerald down at the other end. Claire picks up her spoon, smiling at the massive amount of ice cream in the dish. A scoop each of chocolate, mint-chocolate chip, and vanilla with crumbled Oreos and hot fudge, a hefty serving of whipped cream, and - the best part - five cherries on top… just what the doctor ordered. Or, well, Claire’s stomach and the heavy-hanging confusion in her brain. She listens to the conversations going on around her as she tugs a cherry from its stem.

By the time she spoons up the last mouthful of melted ice cream and fudge sauce, it’s been well over an hour since she arrived, and Claire’s learnt that Gerald’s seventeen-year-old granddaughter ran off with her boyfriend to elope, Melanie down the block is pregnant with her seventh kid, and Dale and Bobbi are both in jail for public indecency. Claire shakes her head, wipes at her mouth with a napkin, and slips a twenty halfway under the bowl. She ignores Edna’s protest and grins widely, thanking the woman for the treat and promising to come back soon. Claire glances back up at the diner after she’s slid into the driver’s seat of her car, laughs when Edna shakes a fist at her; the smile that splits the old woman’s face is enough to make Claire feel so much better.

>> Belle its been almost two hrs u dead???

<< Yes, Tim. I’ve died, and now my ghost is responding to you.
<< The afterlife is VERY tame. It looks a lot like Ma’s.

>> Y did u need a belle of the bowl?

<< Maybe I wanted Charlie’s greasy burgers, you ever think about that?
<< .....It was the Belle of the Bowl. I’ll explain in a bit. Driving home now.

>> Drive safe belle

Claire tosses her phone into the passenger seat and reverses from the parking spot. Thankfully, the drive home is less muddled, the silence slightly less overwhelming. Her mind isn’t quite so fixated on trying to figure out Niall’s sudden personality change. A wild-sounding giggle bubbles up when she wonders if she should call Abby and ask for advice. The logical part of her brain immediately shuts down that thought; if Abby never dealt with this, then Claire certainly doesn’t want to expose the fact that she’s struggling to handle it now.