Uncovered (A Journal)

[Claire Gallows]

((Author's Note: The information found within the journal posts contained in this thread are considered OOC info only. Unless Claire has given any of that information to someone directly, please do not assume to know it in play.

Also, some content may be considered NSFW/Mature/18+. Proceed with caution.

Cross posted to RDI.))


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“You are a woman of many secrets, Claire. How long can you carry them all before the weight crushes you?” Dr. Sabbatini levelled the question with a grave expression, watching the woman across the desk from him with curious concern. She was the picture of barely composed exhaustion, held together by threads that were pulled taut to the point of threatening to snap. Claire leaned forward in the plush chair to set her elbows to her knees. Scrubbing her hands back through her hair, she took a moment to pull herself together before glancing up to meet Sabbatini’s studious gaze.

“I have carried greater weights and been just fine, Doc.” It was a feeble attempt at reassurance that was met with a soft sigh and a tap of his pen twice against the rich oak of his desk. Before him was a single sheet of paper, the results of hours of tests that brought them to that very moment.

“Have you done so while contending with the death of your husband and trying to raise two toddlers without him?” He asked. Rhetorical as it may have been, it had her sitting upright in her chair to fix him with a hard stare.

“No, but I have had help.” She answered. It was not a lie, not by any stretch of the word. After Noct had died, innumerous people came out of the woodwork with condolences and offers to help the grieving young widow with anything she might need.

“Sure, but have you talked to anyone about things?” His question set her to squirming in her seat. Never had she been the talking sort, after five hundred and twenty-some odd years, how could anyone expect that to change?

“No, but…” She began. Sabbatini leaned to open a drawer, retrieving something within to quiet her protest. In his grasp he held a thin, leather bound book. He sat forward to set it on the far edge of the desk, just in front of her.

“I have known you long enough to know that you are not the sort to talk. That is something called a rhetorical question or perhaps a trick question. I already knew the answer, you know that. But you can’t keep going like this, Claire. You have to let some of this out or it is going to spill over at the worst of times.” The doctor sat back in his seat and planted his elbows to the arms of his cushy office chair. Clasping his hands over the slight pooch of his midsection, he looked from the woman to the book and back. “Once a day I would like you to get a little bit of it out of your head and onto paper. Whatever you want to write about is fine just so long as you make it a habit to do it. Deal?”

“You want me to keep a diary?” She asked, skepticism limning both her tone and her expression. Sabbatini nodded.

“Exactly right. You need not share it with anyone or if you do wish to share it, feel free. Either way, it is yours.” Swiveling his seat side to side, he kept his eyes on the pink haired woman in front of him. After a prolonged staring standoff, she finally reached out and snatched the book from the table. It was well crafted, made of black leather and thick, fresh parchment, wound with a thin cord of leather just a few shades lighter than the journal’s jacket.

“This is so stupid.” She muttered.

“Think of it what you will but I think it is worth a try.” Sabbatini countered.

“And if I do not try?” Claire asked.

“Then we will be here to help when you eventually break. When that will be, I have no way of knowing, but it won’t take long if you continue on the course you have set for yourself.” His tone had taken on a weight that made her uncomfortable and abruptly she stood from her seat, bending only momentarily to scoop up the strap of her gym bag.

“Fine. I will try it for a month. If I still feel like an idiot for doing it then I am going to quit.” She announced, as if the whole thing had been her idea all along. Sabbatini offered her a wan smile and a single nod.

“I think that is fair.” He conceded, rising albeit slower than she had. “Take care of yourself, Claire. My paychecks do not get signed otherwise.”

“Ha. Gio’s pretty good at forging my signature these days. You would be just fine.” Slinging the strap over her shoulder, she started for the office’s closed door.

“But Giovanni is not nearly as fun to tease.” Sabbatini called after her as she caught the door and tugged it open. She shot him a withering look and ducked out, pulling the door shut behind her. Alone, the doctor sighed and shook his head. “Immortals are such a pain in the ass.”

“We also have better hearing than you realize.” Claire’s muffled voice sounded through the door. Sabbatini could only laugh as her footsteps faded down the hallway.

[Claire Gallows]

November 1st, 2016

Dear Diary,

That sounds really stupid, like I am fifteen again and writing about all my teenaged angst in a little pink journal with a tiny lock on it. Nevermind the lock sucks and can be opened with any old pin for the world to read all of my first world problems and woe-is-me bullshit. Doc wants me to write so this is me writing when I have twenty-seven million things I could be doing with my time instead. What in the nine hells am I supposed to even be writing about anyways? Great question, I do not have an answer. Doc says I carry too many secrets and that I do not talk about my problems enough. I am a woman of action, damn it, talking does nothing to fix problems.

But I promised him I would give it a try. Thirty days, that is all I am giving it before I go back to my life and my usual ways of dealing with things. I have made it this long without streaming my thoughts to a journal or a therapist, why start now? He cares though, so I will humor his little experiment in the state of my mental well being for now. When December comes, I can burn this book and get on with my life, no harm, no foul. So let’s do this. Where do I begin?

I am Claire and this is a journal of all the weird shit that goes on inside of my head. I am only doing it to humor my doctor because he thinks I am going crazy little by little. What he does not realize is that my sanity when out the window a long, long time ago and I am just sort of coasting along at this point. Normalcy is overrated anyways. I say all of this like anyone is ever going to read it, which they are not, but whatever. I will introduce myself anyways.

Who am I?

I am a mother, a sister, a boss, a girlfriend, a friend, a warrior, a fighter, an athlete, a businesswoman, a widow, a survivor. I am many things. I have been through a lot in life but who has not? Life’s a bitch, then you die. Unless you are immortal, in which case, life is a bitch a million times over. I think maybe that has made me skeptical of all of this. It won’t stop just because I write my thoughts down. It does not go away. I do not suddenly become mortal with only one life to live and an immense need to make that life the best it can be. It makes it easy to become a bit of a cynic, I guess. So let us add immortal and cynic to the list of things I am. It is a pretty long list. I think Doc believes that is part of the issue. That I spread myself too thin and try to be too much to too many people and as such, I leave no time for myself or the things that truly matter.

What he does not realize is that likely this is the only thing keeping me sane since Noct died. It has been eight months, almost to the day, and not a single day has gone by that I have not missed him. Of course I am moving on, moving forward with my life, little by little. It is what he would have wanted after all. A long time ago when it was just he and I, we promised that should something happen to one of us or the other that we would keep fighting, keep living, keep loving. I will always love him, I think. I will always miss him too. Forever will be a long time to miss and love someone, but he was my first love. It spanned time and space and different realms, it beat wars and conflicts and arguments, it triumphed over everything that the universe could have thrown at us. But at the end of the day he was only mortal and I could not save him.

Eight months ago, a coalition of Niflheim special forces breached a vulnerable point in the wall that surrounds Insomnia, the capital of Lucis. Insomnia was our last stronghold of power and even that could not hold. They broke through and thousands of innocent people would have died if it were not for him. He died the death of a hero, the sort of thing that the history books will talk about down the line should we overcome this war. He died the death of a hero and our family was shattered in the process. Though he saved hundreds, if not thousands or more, two children will never see their father again. A wife will never see her husband again. Our family will never truly be whole again, no matter how far forward I push in an effort to move on.

So this is why I keep fighting. This is why I spread myself so thin. So that I do not think about him and all that we have lost. So I do not have to fathom the untold events he will miss. The holidays, the birthdays, the firsts. Averia and Alexander were only fourteen months old when he died. He will miss all of their firsts. I suppose in a life as transient and delicate as this one that I should be grateful for the time that I had with him, for the time that he had with us, but I can’t help but hate the universe for taking him away. I am picking the pieces up, little by little, day by day, but it will never truly be the same and I am allowed to be bitter for that. I am allowed to be weak and hate the world because my children will not know their father as they grow up no matter what I do to keep his memory alive.

Writing in this silly journal won’t change that. Idle words will change nothing. At the end of the day, I am still unequivocally broken and inexplicably irreparable. Doc wants me to write so I will write. It won’t do any good, it won’t bring him back, it won’t make my family whole again. But I will write just the same and when this is all said and done, I can tell him I told him so.

-Claire

[Claire Gallows]

Bang. Bang, bang!

Claire’s gloved fists sent punch after punch against the pads held up by a man that surely had no right to step into a ring against such a small woman. Ezio li Fonti was a monolith of a man, stacked to six inches shy of the seven foot mark and hung with over three hundred pounds of thick, corded muscle. This, of course, did not keep him from taking a swing at the woman, who ducked deftly below his massive fist, sprung up immediately after and connected with her own against the underside of his chin. He reeled back with a laugh, dropping one of the pads to rub at his jaw.

“Nice ’ne.” He chuckled, touching tenderly to a spot that would surely be sporting a brilliant bruise before long.

“You weren’t guarding for the counter.” She pointed out. He nodded and bent to retrieve the fallen pad from the mat, slipping his hand back into the strap on the backside.

“Yeah, well, you were too fast.” He countered with a grin. “So how did the visit with Doc go? You all tip top shape an’ all’a that?”

“As well as could be expected, all things considered. He was full of blah, blah, blah psycho-babble bull shit.” Claire shuffled back a few steps, bobbing on her toes as she waited for Ezio to come at her. Boxing with opponents far bigger than her had always been a special sort of therapy for her, pushing her to exert herself until she was simply too tired to think about what plagued her.

“So other than bein’ crazier than a loon, you’re healthy?” He asked. The woman took a swing at him, which he batted away with a mit of a hand then smacked her upside the head with it. The swear that tumbled from her lips had him laughing all over again.

“Healthy as a horse, evidently. He has just got me doing this journaling crap like it will somehow fix everything that has happened over the last however long.” A second swing and then a third both missed and resulted in punishing body shots from her training partner. She grunted under the impact and faded back a trio of steps.

“Journalin’? That’s a thing for people o’er the age’a twelve?” Ezio snorted.

“My thoughts exactly.” This time when she swung, she connect with a pair of punches and a follow-up knee to the man’s gut. He doubled over with a choked laugh.

“Maybe if ya get some of it out in a book you’ll stop havin’ t’ kick m’ ass every day.” Ezio stood upright and extended a closed fist to her, grinning. “Good shot.”

“I will still have to kick your ass every day, Ezio, so do not think you are getting rid of me so easily.” Claire grinned back, bumping fists with her partner before climbing out of the ring to go hit the showers.

[Claire Gallows]

November 2nd, 2016

Dear Journal,

Journal is better than diary. I do not feel so childish and inane writing if I think of it this way, you know? Adults can journal. Little girls keep diaries. And I am most certainly not a little girl anymore. After five hundred blah-blah-blah years, I would like to hope I have progressed past the point of prepubescent diary keeping. Okay, so maybe I am being a little sarcastic about this whole thing. Perhaps I ought to give it an honest try. I owe Doc that much after everything he’s done for me and if I am going to be keeping this thing for a whole month, Cooper will notice before long. After I gave him that journal for his birthday (which I have never seen used to my knowledge), it would be pretty hypocritical for me to sit here and decry the idea of journaling when I have encouraged that very behavior for him.

He and I are a lot alike like that. We both have a habit of taking on more than we should, quietly shouldering burdens that are not ours to take on but we do it for the sake of those we love and care about, our own well beings be damned. I guess it is not surprising then that we would have gravitated to one another. It just surprises me some days. Finding a rock as strong as Cooper at quite literally the lowest point in my life ever was a breath of fresh air.

I suppose I could elaborate. So it has been two hundred and forty days since Noct was killed. Almost eight months. Prior to getting the call from Commander Leonis, it had been two months since I had last seen him. This was normalcy for us. Lucis was (and still is) at war and he had a duty to his people that he took quite seriously. Our people. They are my people too. Long stretches in which we had minimal contact while he handled business were not unusual. I did not expect Cor to call though. He told me that we had sustained heavy casualties, which of course I blamed myself for. But then he told me that Noctis was among them I had to make him repeat himself. I do not think it really registered for probably ten minutes but when it did, it was as if everything fell apart all at once.

I spent a really long time believing that the universe simply was not going to allow me to be happy. It made me wary to open myself up to Noct for fear of things eventually going awry. I know that is a shitty reason to avoid relationships, but hey, it is what I knew. When I finally gave in, it seemed like being together was in direct defiance of whatever plan the universe had for us (seeing a trend yet?) and as such, we were opposed at every turn. It gets really tiring fighting for what you want but we did not stop. Not even when separated by different realms and a bout of bitch induced amnesia. That’s a long story for another time though. Hopefully I do not have to get into it because let me tell you, what a mess. We fought though. We fought long and hard and finally it seemed like we had won. Beltane saw us married. New Year’s saw new additions to our family when the twins arrived.

Things were pretty good, you know? I thought maybe we had pulled a fast one on destiny, that perhaps we would get away with it too.

Then he died. Just like that. So I tried one last time to bend the rules and make our family whole again. Only I could not. Not without sacrificing everything we had built together. If I brought him back at the cost of not only my own life but those of our children, he would have never forgiven me. A life for a life, the balance had to be kept and I had tipped it so far that not just any life would do. It had to be mine and the babies. I could not make them suffer for my decisions just to get my husband back. Had it been only my life at stake, well, if that were the case I would not be here writing this right now and the twins would be raised by their father instead. There was no winning, not really at least.

When they needed me the most, I fell apart. Had it not been for Cooper, I do not think I would have survived it. How he came to be a part of our lives is a matter of debate sometimes. But once upon a time, he did something for our family that I could never repay. I could not repay him for saving Serah’s life but I could offer him everything short of it. He had been staying in our guest house for the better part of a year when Noct was taken away from me. Often he watched the twins and sometimes I think they liked him better than they liked me. I blame the fishy crackers. Due to some circumstances that I do not really want to elaborate upon right now (again, another epically long as fuck story), he is not able to have children of his own and so he said he lived vicariously through the twins, experiencing the joys of watching them grow up, with the added luxury of sending them home to their parents when they were being little shits. It was a good arrangement.

It was Cooper who broke down the door to the manor the morning after I got Leonis’ call. Cordellia could not get in and Ezio realized I hadn’t shown up for training. While they tried to figure out just what to do, Cooper just… boom. There goes the door, there go the wards, total mess. Cordellia told me he went straight for the kids, a fact I am grateful for even after all this time. I spent the night on the living room floor, half in shock and on the verge of psychosis. I do not even remember hearing them cry. Mother of the year award worthy right? Right. It took a week to clean the bloodstains his footprints left upstairs. We ended up replacing the carpeting in the nursery completely because the wolves could still pick up the scent of his blood. This man, who had no true obligation to me or my family, bled for us to make sure that we were okay. Words can’t explain the gratitude I have toward him for that. Once he was sure the kids were alright, he came to find me. Nobody could tell me just how long I sat there staring into space like my mind was a million miles away, but he managed to reel me in little by little until he was certain I was okay too. Well, not okay, because who can be okay at a time like that? But at least that I was responsive. I do not think I have ever seen him so worried.

I did some foolish things after that point, things I am not necessarily proud of. But I did what I thought was right at the time in order to keep my family together. I was proven wrong but when the dust settled, Cooper Gallows was still there. Despite everything he had on his plate too, he did everything he could to keep me going, even if that meant dragging me kicking and screaming from day to day. He helped look after Averia and Alexander when I was hardly a good person to be responsible for the lives of two little humans. He made sure I ate, or at least tried. I lost something like fifteen pounds after Noct died though I was sure that between coffee and beer that I should have been able to make up the calories I was missing by not properly eating.

Totally logical, I know. When I drank too much he gently reminded me of what I was missing in my alcohol blurred daze. He held me when I cried, empathized with what I had lost, and while he told me he knew that life would never be the same after this loss, that it would go on just the same. He was there at my tipping point, ready to catch me when I fell even if I meant I dragged him down with me. Steadfast, solid, an anchor that kept me from floating away while making sure I did not drown either.

We spent two months nearly at the beach house south of Icarus Cove. It was supposed to be Noct and I’s place, where we could get away when the city was too much as it so often was. Instead it served as a sanctuary, a sense of salvation for me while I put my life back together. People back home made sure day to day things went off without a hitch, making it easy to forget the city for awhile. It was just me, the twins, Cooper, and the beach. Sand, sea, and sky, they are the trifecta of zen for me, a piece of home away from home and a way to find myself when everything else is threatening to overtake me.

I honestly did not expect to find comfort in his arms but I suppose all things considered, it really is not a surprise that I did. He was close, closer than any in my worst days, and he did not run even when I gave him every out possible. To stand strong in the face of such a storm is something I do not even think I can do consistently, but there he was, every step of the way. Avy and Alex loved him, which helped, but obviously that isn’t everything. Still, things changed between us. He stopped being a friend and instead became something more. It was not as though he was taking Noct’s place, especially not after such a short time. After all, such a thing will likely never be accomplished. But he was something all right. I did not have an explanation for it at the time but I was still grateful for it and dare I say it, I was happy when I thought I would never be happy again.

I am still waiting for the universe to catch up and tell me this won’t stand for long, but for now I am going to take it at face value. Happy is a good thing, right?

--Claire

[Claire Gallows]

“Alexander, do not put that in your mouth. No, seriously. Yucky.” Claire sighed as she tried her best to retrieve the broken doll head from her toddler son’s grasp over the wails of his twin sister who was most distraught at the sudden death of dolly at the hands of her brother. Not even two years old and it had already begun. Alex giggled wildly and dodged his mother’s grab, the doll head making his chubby cheek bulge further. Fake yellow hair spilled past his lips like ultrafine spaghetti, creating a floppy front tail as he tried to get away. Thankfully Claire was quicker than Alex was ornery and snatched him by the back of his shirt, tugging him back to her to fish the drool covered doll head from his mouth.

“Miiiiiiiiine!” He protested, his little fists balling up with each empty grab for the freed toy. Claire looked from the doll’s head to her son then to her daughter. She sat Alex on his rump and crawled over to console Averia, holding the doll head by the hair.

“Look, it is okay, Avy. Mama’s gonna fix it, I promise.” She cooed to the little girl, whose wide silver eyes brimmed with the lingering threat of tears even after she had stopped crying. Averia seemed hesitant to grab for the head and truthfully Claire could not fault her for that. With a sigh, Claire wrapped the slobbery piece of plastic in the hem of her shirt and rubbed away the majority of spit. “I will be right back, baby. Mama’s going to clean it up.”

Getting to her feet, she stepped away only as long as it took to get the bathroom’s tap running before yelling in the bedroom drew her back away. It was typical, as was her exasperation as she returned to the twins’ room to find this time it was Averia making her brother cry. His meticulously constructed block castle had been decimated, wrecked by a rampaging toddler in a fit of what could have only been revenge. No sooner had Claire stepped back into the doorway did Alex come running over, slamming into her legs and wrapping his arms around her. His babbling was nearly incoherent but the general idea was easy to pick up on.

“Alright, that is enough out of both of you unless you both want to sit in timeout.” Grave threats from tired moms were no laughing matter. Alex quickly let her go, dodged around her, and went pinballing down the hall to the living room. Averia simply looked up at her mother like she dared her to put the little girl in timeout. “Don’t give me that look, little lady.”

A key in the front door and the subsequent jostling of the door handle had her backtracking after Alex to be sure he did not try anything silly like escaping the threat of timeout right through the front door. She got there just in time for Cooper to step through the front door and Alex to go sprinting right to him. Cooper grinned and shut the door behind him, bending at the waist in anticipation of having to catch the platinum mopped wonder. Alex collided with the gurahl amidst a wild scream that was surely tattling on Claire and Averia both. What he slipped into it though had Claire freezing in her tracks.

“Avy broke blocks and, and, and, Mama mean and timeout but I do not wanna. B-but Papa home. Help Alex now?” Grasping at Cooper until the cowboy picked him up, Alex was contented once his feet left the ground but it left Claire and Cooper staring at each other awkwardly.

“...I didn’t teach ‘em that.” He said after a few moments of hesitation in response to the look on Claire’s face. When she finally remembered how to breathe, she quickly crossed the distance between the hall and the front door where Cooper still stood with Alex in his arms. The latter, unsure of just why there was tension between the grown ups, fiddled with the brim of the black Stetson sitting atop the man’s head.

“Alexander.” Claire began softly. The change in her tone from the bedroom to the living room was enough to draw the little boy’s attention. Gold blinked back at her as she settled a few fingertips to the boy’s cheek. With her other hand, she had withdrawn her phone. Glancing down, she unlocked it and scrolled through to get to her pictures. Claire took a deep breath, her thumb skimming the screen until she had gone far enough back to reach a single photo. It had been one of her favorites, of Noctis with Averia on his shoulders and Alexander held on his hip with the wrap of one arm. All three were smiling though only Averia was looking at the camera. It was one of the last pictures she had taken of the trio before Noct left for Lucis for the last time. She turned the phone toward her son and pointed at the picture. “Alex, baby, who is this?”

“Is… me!” He said with a big grin full of baby teeth. Claire smiled a little, because how could she not?

“Uh huh. Very good. Who else?” She prompted quietly. Alex poked and prodded at the picture, skewing it with each minute manipulation.

“Is Alex and Avy and Da.” Alex said proudly, looking to his mother for confirmation. Claire exhaled the breath she had been holding.

“Great job sweetheart, that’s right.” She kissed his forehead and drew back, lifting her chin to meet Cooper’s gaze. He had been quiet through her questioning, a practiced look of neutrality having settled over his rugged features. He was next to get a kiss, soft to brush the bristle of his beard. “Sorry.”

“Nothin’ to be sorry for, darlin’.” He murmured but she was certain she could detect the barest trace of hurt in his tone. In such close proximity, it gave Alex the perfect opportunity to raspberry his mother’s cheek. It had the corner of Cooper’s mouth curling as Claire reeled back.

“Really? Really?! Little booger.” She sighed, kissed both of her boys once more, and went to go see just why Averia was being so quiet.

[Claire Gallows]

November 3rd, 2016

Dear Journal,

Today has been a day. Now, I know that all days are technically days but this one was taxing. It shouldn’t have been, not really at least, but my heart aches and I have not yet been able to rein it in like I normally can. Most days, I am really quite good at compartmentalizing everything. In my head, everything has its own neat little box in which it fits. Then I can tuck things away and nothing think about them unless I absolutely have to. There are tons of boxes. Some are quiet, some are loud, some are touched often, some are left to gather dust in the recesses of my mind. There is the dueling box, the business box, and the Cooper box. There is the twins box, the Serah box, and the Noctis box. Today I can’t quite get a lid on the last one no matter how hard I try.

Alex called Cooper “Papa” today. Truthfully I should not be surprised considering Cooper has spent more time with the kids than Noct ever got the chance to. Even when he was alive, they still were far more often with Cooper than Noct if only because he was so often off world where we could not reach him. Though it has been eight months since Noctis died, it has been almost a year since the babies saw him last. They were only a year old so I have always been terrified that they are going to forget him. That they won’t remember their father. Serah does not really remember our dad because he died when she was so young. I remember him, in bits and pieces, but she can’t because she was so little. I do not want that to happen to Alex and Averia.

I pulled up a picture of Noct with the twins to see if he still recognized him. Sure enough he pointed Noct out. That’s Da. Is Da just a name to him now? Associated with a face he only sees in pictures and a voice he will only ever hear in recordings? I have done my very best to keep his memory alive for them, to remind them of just how much he loved them, but it is hard. It is so very hard. I do not want either of them to grow up feeling like he is a stranger.

It was an awkward position to put Cooper in. He loves the kids too, I know that. He loves them almost as if they are his own. But still he says that he knows he will never be able to take Noct’s place in their lives. It leaves me to consider just what that place was and if anyone could ever fill it. I do not think our hearts are that rigid to not grow and change as the people in our lives change too. He may not be their father by blood but he has been there for them when he did not have to be which is just as important.

I may have freaked out a little. All I could tell Cooper afterwards was that I was sorry. I did not really know what else to say after that. Some part of me feels guilty for letting him in so soon after losing Noct, like I am doing a disservice to him as well as my dead husband. The other part of me has been steadily trying to convince myself that I am worthy of happiness and that it is okay to move on. Well, I do not really think of it as moving on so much as it is pushing forward no matter how much the past weighs me down with its sorrows. I am surviving and there is no fault in that no matter how much my conscience tries to guilt me into thinking otherwise.

Now I have to figure out if Alex (and likely Averia too) needs to be corrected. If it makes him happy to call Cooper “Papa” is that a bad thing? I do not know. I suppose I ought to talk to Cooper about it first. I would hate for it to upset him or make him uncomfortable in any way. He was defensive right off the bat as if I would accuse him of teaching Alex to say that. He has taught Alex many things (not all good either) but I would never think he would intentionally do that. Alexander is smart though. He is very much so his own person and part of me thinks that I could not stop him even if I wanted to. Cooper has only ever wanted the kids to be happy so I am inclined toward thinking that even if it stung he would still accept whatever it was they wanted to call him. So long as it isn’t “Coop”, because Cooper is not Coop and calling him such will get you corrected every time. Even if you think he is sleeping when you say it.

But that is a story for another time, I think. I should go have that talk.

--Claire

[Claire Gallows]

The rest of the afternoon passed with little fanfare and minimal tantrum throwing. With both Cooper and Claire in the apartment, it was easier to break up the strength in numbers effect that occurred when it was just one of them with the twins. Dinner came and went, bath time went off without a hitch, and at last bedtime was upon them. Eight o’clock was a glorious time in the Farron-Caelum-Gallows household. On the best of days it meant the twins went to bed without protest. When they were less lucky, it still meant that after a short and valiantly fought battle, two stories, at least one potty run, and handful of hugs and kisses, the twins’ bedroom would be lit with the soft glow of two night lights (Paw Patrol for Alex and a purple teddy bear for Averia) and soon they would be left to the quiet twin chatter picked up by the baby monitor until they drifted off to sleep.

“Victory is ours,” Claire declared quietly once she shut their door behind her and padded out into the living room. The television was still set to cartoons and Cooper did not seem horribly intent on changing it so she flopped onto the couch. There she oozed across his lap to reach for the remote and once she had it in had, she squashed the power button beneath her thumb and set it aside. The TV flickered off and left them with only the soft glow of the lamp on the side table and whatever ambient light filtered through the vertical blinds that covered the sliding glass door to the balcony. Though the task of turning the TV off was accomplished, she did not immediately vacate the cowboy’s lap. Rather she wriggled until she could lay her head on his legs, her own legs draped over the arm of the couch. His hand fell to her hair where his thick fingers worked through the silk of her hair. There she looked up at him, pensive as she chewed on what she wanted to say.

“I am sorry about earlier… I did not mean to… I do not know, freak out or whatever…” She finally said after a handful of silent minutes. With her vague apology offered out, she pinned her lip with her teeth to keep from saying more and went quiet.

The whole situation had been a surprising level of awkward but the cowboy had borne up under it well enough. He made a point of addressing the platinum haired little boy without acknowledging the the name Alex had given him, as if it weren't an issue and as if it changed nothing. And perhaps it did, despite the hollow pangs of pain it produced in his chest and the knot of something so often ignored forming in his stomach. More than one veiled glance had been sent Claire's way in the intervening time between his arrival home and the often eagerly anticipated bed time. The latter he had bowed out of early, gracefully, with a series of quick kisses and gentle squeezes before he deposited himself on the couch.

It never changed, the way he welcomed her into his personal space, and despite what had transpired hours before, Cooper was attempting to put her at ease the gentle touch of his fingers. Eventually they glided down along her neck and beneath her chin so that he could tip her head back. It earned her an upside down kiss before he finally spoke.

"I guess neither one'a us saw that comin'," he confessed quietly, stroking her cheek with the pad of a thumb. "I'd be lyin' if'n I said some part'a me wasn't mo' than a little thrilled by the notion, all things bein' considered, but I wouldn't ever do nothin' t' take away from Noct's memory. He's their father. S' his right. They should know the difference."

For all that she wanted that upside down kiss to linger, she knew there was more to be said between them and after a brief melding of her lips to his, she dropped her chin and let slip a quiet sigh. His discomfort was palpable, twisting her heart and stomach into a wicked knot that she could not begin to hope to unravel.

"They do... at least, I think they do. They were just so young when we lost him... I do not really know how to make sure he's anything more than a face in pictures to them. But you... I..." She shook her head slightly, struggling for words after having spilled plenty across the crisp white page of her new journal. "You've earned such a title if they think you have. I mean, shit, you've been around them more than anyone has. More than I have. More than he was. Anyone. I'd be stupid to think they wouldn't think of you in such a way, I just did not think Alex would put a name to it so soon, you know?"

"Yeah. I guess I wasn't expectin' it at all. But not bein', Belle excluded, t' have kids'a muh own, it is just a little bittersweet. I just do not want anyone ever thinkin' that it didn't happen in honest fashion, fo' whatever it is worth." Big fingers started to rub her shoulders, perhaps to sooth them both. "I sure as Hell do not plan on goin' anywhere anytime soon..."

"I know... I didn't know what to say... I mean, with everything you've got going on, I just, yeah... I am sorry." She apologized again as if it would take back the awkward moment earlier in the day, as if she hadn't lost her carefully crafted calm in the face of something that she had contemplated once or twice but never thought would come to pass. Did it mean she was failing or was it simply the natural progression of things? Cooper's own concerns as they were voiced happened to align with her own and despite the soothing touch of his fingers against her tense muscles, she somehow managed to keep her eyes open and up upon his face. "You better not be. But... I figured I'd ask you then about what we should do... do you want me to correct him or do you care what he calls you? I know it is... I do not know. I do not even know how to go about talking about it. Just... tell me what you're thinking?"

"M' in it t' win it," he told her earnestly, his dark eyes intent upon hers. "If'n I have muh way, m' gonna be here fo' the long haul, fo' as long as you'll let me. I do not wanna correct him but it might mean some unpleasant looks from other folks who do not understand what's what and how we got here."

"If I have it my way, you will be. But we both know the universe does not always care about or abide by our plans." Wasn't that how she had lost Noct to begin with? Her teeth raked against her bottom lip, just behind which she formulated carefully what she wanted to say. The silence stretched until she was sure she trusted her voice. "Do we care? It is probably the same people that declared me a pariah when Noct showed up in Rhydin to begin with. My relationships, my family, are none of their business. And... I guess what I am saying is that if someone dared stick their nose in where it does not belong, I'd break it for them."

Well, that answered the question for Claire of how she felt about it herself. Her lip was once more pinned by another bite and she looked up again, intent upon his thoughts on just such a thing.

"I don't care." When he said it, he meant it. "Anyone that matters knows me well enough t' know who I am and how I do things. Someone else has a problem with that, they can get bent fo' all I care. M' happy and that ain't hurtin' no one. Can't ask fo' much mo' than that, Slugger."

"You do not care. I do not care either." Her chin dropped a soft nod that still gave him plenty of space to knead his fingers against her shoulders. There was still a vague, lingering ache in her chest, as if she had failed at some final responsibility she had to Noctis and his memory. "You're right... what they think does not matter. All I gotta know is that you're okay with things as they are. I am not... I am not asking you to replace him but you're a phenomenal father... I think there would be far worse things in life than if the twins saw you as such."

"Then it ain't nothin' worth stressin' 'bout mo' than we aw'ready have, darlin'." He tipped her head back and kissed her again, letting it linger for a time before he murmured against her lips. "Let's let it be what it'll be and just take it all as it comes. Everyone's in good hands."

"You know me, I am a worrier, Cooper." She managed to mumble against his mouth, grazing her teeth along his bottom lip to further muffle his soft reassurances. "If things do not fit into their neat spaces then I have to push until they do. So... if it makes them happy and it makes you happy, then I do not need to push anymore."

"Nice choice'a words." A low, ursine chortle was her reward, his nose touching hers. "Important question: Does it make you happy?"

"I am nothing if not good at questionable phrasing." A little smile, crooked but genuine, tugged at her mouth until their lips no longer aligned. His question though had her quietly considering her answer. "I am still trying to figure things out. Balancing honoring the past with giving the present and future the space it needs to be what it is and will be. It is harder than I thought it would be. But I guess to answer your question, you make me happy. The kids make me happy. You three being happy makes me happy. And it does not hurt me to think about us being a family. So, yeah... I am rambling... shut me up?"

"S' no rush." The crooked grin of hers caught a kiss from him at one corner, with a renewed kneading of her shoulders and then a gentle nuzzle against her temple. His voice lowered. "You'll figure it out, darlin'. It'll be fine. It'll be good. Just take it a day at a time and soak it all up, every last little bit. And I can't shut you up, Slugger..." Cooper murmured quietly against her ear. "And you're layin' on muh Claire Silencer..."

"It already is good." She said with a degree of quiet conviction. Her eyes closed as his voice dropped, the soft rumble tickling her ear and bringing life back to her smile. What he had to say though lifted an unexpected laugh out of her and she gently pushed at his shoulder. "Leave it to you, Cooper Gallows. You're ridiculous."

A beat followed, pulling her mouth into a coy curve. "Also, seldom am I silent."

"Hey," he muttered defensively. "You said it. You're the dirty one. M' just a victim'a yo' bawdy wit and gorgeous smile."

"Oh yes, you're just a victim. You poor thing," she deadpanned, snaking an arm around his neck to leverage herself upright in his lap. Sitting sidesaddle, she pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth, a contrast to the teasing interplay of moments before.

"Thank you for talking to me. Sometimes I just need help quieting my mind, you know?" She mumbled as her nose nuzzled alongside his. He was good for that, soothing the storm that raged within. With him everything was fine, everything was good. Also, for all of the innocence of her soft gratitude and gentle affection, she still wasted no time in relieving him of his belt, popping the button on his jeans with a roll of her thumb. She doubted that by the time she was done with him that he would be crying foul in the least.

"Sometimes y' need t' get stuff off'a yo' chest in yo' own time. Always happens eventually. I just gotta make sure I am there t' catch it. But you've done that now." He grazed his teeth gently against her neck. "Now all y' need off'a yo' chest is that top. Then them pants can go next."

"Take 'em off with your teeth and you've got yourself a deal."

[Claire Gallows]

November 4th, 2016

Dear Journal,

Another day, another pointless as all get out journal entry. Remind me again just what this is all supposed to be for? Oh that is right, supposedly to keep me from snapping and all of that jazz. It is a cyclical thing though, the state of my mental well being. There are highs and lows and everything in between. For all of my life I thought that was normal, natural you know? What are we if not flawed and fallible human beings with needs and wants and downfalls? Doc is fully human, surely he should understand. Or maybe he is holding me to a different standard because I am not exactly human. I might look human and I may have been fully human once upon a long time ago but things got a little froggy around my twenty-first birthday. The rest is history but in the interest of enlightening my blank pieces of paper, perhaps I will retell it in its entirety. It is Friday. I should have been at the gym but I took the day off to hang out with the kids instead. They are currently eating Cheerios and watching animated animals on the television so I suppose I have a bit of time to write.

Where to start? Beginnings are good, right? To go back to the beginning would be to take you further back than even my life spans though and I do not really feel like giving a history lesson on Gran Pulse and the forming of the universe so maybe we will start in the middle instead. Middle, middle, where in the middle. Let’s see here.

I was twenty years old, a sergeant with the Guardian Corps - Bodhum Security Regiment on the verge of officer candidate school. I had my whole life and a rather promising career ahead of me. The only problem was my penchant for working long, late hours and pretty much shirking my duty to my family and friends. Sure, my family pretty much only consisted of my sister, Serah, but hey, family is family. I spent a whole lot of time working and not a whole lot of time at home. I suck, I know.

On my twenty-first birthday Serah came to me to tell me that she had been branded a l’Cie. Not only that but she was marrying this guy named Snow. Total dipshit, that guy. Honestly, I thought Serah was lying about being branded a l’Cie so that I would cut her some slack when it came to marrying Snow. It was pretty much the worst birthday ever. See, the issue is that l’Cie are essentially considered the enemy of the state. They are normal human beings who have been branded for use by creatures called fal’Cie. fal’Cie are sort of… what is a good explanation for them… divine-ish entities that grant their subjugates immense amounts of magical and physical power.

I know that does not sound that bad at first. But these people, the l’Cie, are also given something called a Focus to fulfill by the fal’Cie that branded them. It is pretty much a ticking time bomb of a mission and if they do not complete it in time, they turn into monsters called Cie’th. If you fulfill your Focus, you get the wonderful pleasure of being turned into crystal until you are given a new Focus. See, the government is not too keen on letting the whims of fickle deities interfere with their autonomy and as such, l’Cie are dangerous and must be eradicated. As a member of the military, that was my job. I was quick to remind Serah of this fact, which understandably upset her quite a bit. Yeah, I suck. I know.

Because of a rash of fal’Cie activity and the discovery of a Pulse fal’Cie in the Vestige, the Sanctum (my boss’s bosses, the top dogs of the government) imposed a quarantine upon Bodhum. They were going to purge the entirety of the town to Gran Pulse. Mind you, that is pretty much a whole different world. We lived in Cocoon which was essentially a dyson sphere in the atmosphere of Gran Pulse. But that is a history lesson for another time. Anyways. They were going to send the entirety of the townsfolk to Gran Pulse. As a member of the security regiment, I was exempt from the purge but there was no way in hell that I was going to let them send Serah away without me.

So I quit my job and volunteered to be purged too. It would get me to the Vestige where Serah was being held. I kind of, sort of put the beat down on a bunch of PSICOM soldiers and broke a bunch of purged captives free. We got out with a little help and I went to go find Serah only to find that she had truly been branded l’Cie. She asked me to save Cocoon and then turned into crystal… which meant she fulfilled her Focus, at least this time around. Okay, so that was not very ideal but we could have worked with it.

One problem, though. We (myself and a few others that were helping me) ended up branded too. Which meant a whole other host of problems since we were dealing with PSICOM on our asses on top of having to contend with our Focus. Oh, did I mention that you are not told what your Focus is? You just have to sort of figure it out and hope for the best. Great, right? Anyways, everything went awry and we ended up on Gran Pulse anyways. From here we insert a whole lot of boring cat and mouse blah blah blah that ultimately results in Cocoon nearly falling out of the sky.

It got a little weird from there. Time is a funny thing but paradoxes are no laughing matter. This is where we insert a big, long explanation about the difference between the Seen realm and the Unseen and how that came to be and why it is significant. But let me sum it like this… Gods are assholes and do not particularly care about the lives that get fucked up by their crappy oversized egos and crackpot schemes. We are nothing but pawns and playthings to them, to use and abuse on a whim and to throw in the garbage when they are done. I spent a really, really long time being a pawn. Try as I might to rebel as I could, they still found a way to reel me back in every time.

I ended up in the service of a Goddess called Etro. Back home, she was known as a Goddess of Death but in reality she was so much more than that. She was kind and benevolent and responsible for humanity as we know it. There is a little bit of Chaos in each of our hearts and it is thanks to Etro that it is there. It is the last bastion of free will in a fight against Gods that have no qualms about manipulating us at every turn. She saved me. She saved a lot of us, freeing us from our l’Cie fates. It was a massive sacrifice for her that would ultimately result in her death and in order to prolong her life, she slept. As she slept, I watched over her and the realm of Valhalla, a sort of in between for the Seen and Unseen Realms, a last stop before souls join the great beyond for eternity. Or at least until they are reborn again.

It was by no means an easy task, let me tell you that. In a world where time does not flow as it did in the Seen, I was left to an endless battle for control against a man named Caius. I will have to write about Caius more in depth some time but for now, it is easy to say that he was my greatest enemy. Total thorn in my side. Every time I thought I had prevailed over him, he returned. The joys of immortality, right? Only problem… I was not immortal. So if I lost to him, I would die and I would stay in Valhalla forever. Needless to say, I was not a fan of that idea.

Eventually my goal changed and I was sent by Etro to the world of Eos. There I was tasked with the protection of a young prince and his kingdom in order to defend one of the last crystals. It was imperative to the balance that he live and so I begrudgingly went. He was stubborn and hard to reason with. If I thought Caius was a pain, I hadn’t seen anything until I met this man. We fought often, physically and verbally, and to those looking on it was easy to say that we may have even hated each other.

But there are sayings about love and hate. They are both passion amplified to one extreme or another and somehow, it is easy for one to tip into the other. That is exactly what happened. We spent so much time together it was only inevitable for something to develop. Long of the short, that is how I met the man that would be my husband and father of my children. Another story for another time, really. We would be here all day otherwise.

Back to the main point of all of this. What I did not know was that when Etro sent me to Eos to protect Lucis, she was only sending a part of me. My soul, the very core of my being, was kept in a crystal sleep. Even after I left Lucis and ended up in Rhydin, this piece of me remained separated. I was a shadow of who I should have been and while I slept, Valhalla crumbled. Everything fell apart. Pulse, Cocoon, Valhalla, all of it. I was none the wiser too, but an entirely new world formed out of it. Nova Chrysalia was a hot mess to end all hot messes. Equal parts Gran Pulse and Valhalla, it was a dying world that would not last.

Though only a year in Rhydin passed between my arrival and when I was called away, five hundred years had carried my soul through to the new world’s last days. The God Bhunivelze awoke me from my crystal sleep when there was but thirteen days left for Nova Chrysalia. Much like always, I was his pawn, meant to carry out his will where he could not. He wished for me to save the souls of the worthy for he could not see the souls himself. We can thank Etro for that one. If I was successful, he would give Serah back to me. In exchange he gave me massive amounts of power that I could not even comprehend. It was honestly one of the strangest, most stressful two weeks of my life. Though I was whole again, all five hundred twenty-some odd years of me, I still felt like I was missing something. What that was, I was not able to quite put my finger on it but something was missing.

Come to find out, it was a piece of me that had been missing ever since I was a teenager. Long ago I locked it away in hopes of growing up and moving on, putting my parents’ deaths behind me so I could be the adult that Serah needed me to be. Note to self, that is a terrible idea. Like horrible. I got it back eventually. Then to top it off, we sort of decided to kill that God for what he did and to stop him from messing everything up even more. Yes. We killed a God. Even they have their flaws. He had been grooming me to take Etro’s place, something that pissed me off quite a bit. Problem; her position was actually needed in his absence, if only to maintain the balance of the new world once it was born.

I stepped up. It was either me or it was Caius and a girl called Yeul. For all that I hated Caius, I could not do that to Yeul. So I took up the mantle. In doing so, I became responsible for the balance of life and death and rebirth as far as the new world went. It gave me dominion over Valhalla as well as Eos and it also essentially made me immortal. I can still die, under the right circumstances, but it is really freaking difficult to accomplish. Trust me, I have tried. A couple times, in fact. But again, stories for another day. I have wasted enough time writing today so I am going to take advantage of this gorgeous weather and enjoy hanging out with two little dorks.

--Claire

[Claire Gallows]

“She has had a little bit of a fever so I understand if you would rather she not be around the twins.” Raven shuffled Adelaide from one hip to the other, adjusting the grumpy toddler who laid her head back down on her mother’s shoulder with a quiet whine and tugged at her ear. How dare Raven inconvenience her like that.

“It is no big deal, really. Ear infection?” Claire asked, climbing the steps to the apartment above the Sassy Owl Saloon. Once upon a time it had been meant as a temporary reprieve, a place to crash when the drive to the Caelum Estate was too far but since Noct’s death, it had turned into something of a way for Claire to avoid facing the fact that he was never coming home and the home they had created together was far too empty.

“Probably. She might not want to play but at least she will be easy to deal with.” Raven was right behind her. At the top of the stairs, Claire disengaged the wards with a wave of her hand and stepped inside, holding the door for her friend and her god daughter.

“She is always perfect, really. And you deserve a night out, I promise it isn’t a problem at all.” Claire assured her, stopping to reach for the little raven haired child. Addie gladly reached for her godmother, wrapping her lanky arms and legs around the woman like a little koala bear. Claire pressed her lips to the girl’s forehead and frowned. “Yeah, still running a bit of a temp. We’ll still have a good night. Wanna watch movies?”

Adelaide nodded a little and Claire smiled, carrying the girl through the kitchen to the living room so she could set her down on the plush, throw pillow covered couch. Addie wriggled a little, tugging at a fleece blanket from the couch’s back. Once it was free, she pulled it over herself and flopped over against the pillows. It gave Claire the chance to turn back to Raven with a little shrug.

“See? No big deal.”

“I know… I just hate leaving her when she does not feel good, you know?” Raven watched her daughter for a few moments. The cartoons on the TV screen seemed to have her content for the time being.

“I get it, trust me. But the twins seldom get sick and they will take good care of her. You just have a good night with the man candy, ya know?” Claire’s frown lifted into a hint of a teasing grin. Raven rolled her eyes and tried not to blush, failing as a tint of pink touched her cheeks.

“Henry and I are going to go dancing, I think. But we will be in the city so if you need anything or if she needs me, just call me. I will have my phone on me.” Raven brushed a strand of black out of her eyes and over an ear. Claire snickered and ushered the woman toward the front door.

“Focus on enjoying your night with Henry. I promise I will stop teasing you eventually if you promise you won’t call to check in every thirty minutes.” So maybe it was not quite thirty minute intervals at which Raven would text Claire but still, it was excessive. Raven bit at her bottom lip and tugged the front door open, giving Adelaide one last lingering look.

“I do not mean to be so… you know, about it. She’s just all I have got left now.” Raven said softly. It was enough to render Claire speechless but still she managed a gentle nod of understanding that had Raven summoning a slight smile. “She’ll be okay with you. I know. Have fun tonight.”

[Claire Gallows]

November 5th, 2016

Dear Journal,

So I talked to Doc and let him know that I am giving this writing thing an honest try. I also told him that I am only five days in and do not know what to write. After a brief and terribly awkward discussion, he gave me a few prompts that he think might help. Sometimes I have to remind myself that he is not, in fact, a shrink. At the end of the day he’s just a regular old doctor with a penchant for sticking his nose into other people’s business. Often it is my business. Which is annoying to say the least but I know he means well.

Anyways. Prompts. Some are stupid but others might be worth writing about. Among them, there was the subject of guilt. With all the guilt that I carry from day to day, surely that should be an easy one to write about. Specifically the prompts were… Is there anything you feel guilty about? Is there anything you need to be forgiven for? Long of the short, yes. Perhaps I can elucidate. I do not expect it will be particularly enlightening for me but my hope is that getting it down on paper will lighten the burden of carrying it with me constantly. Guilt comes in many forms. It can be internal or external, it can be justly earned or falsely carried, but the weight remains the same. Long of the short, it is a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, or wrong. Real or imagined, guilt does not discriminate. Doc says I have a martyr complex and as such, I am a fucking pro at being guilty. Large and small, let’s talk about the things that plague me.

Of course as soon as I begin writing, I completely blank on just what I feel bad about. I call that the Bhunivelze Effect. Sometimes, even after all this time, I just stop feeling much of anything at all, which is something that he did to me when he woke me from my crystal sleep. I suppose that makes it easier when you are a shitty person like I am. Who wants to feel the impact of all the crappy things they have done in their lifetime? Wouldn’t it be easier if you could just flip a switch and turn it all off? Unfortunately humanity’s greatest asset and most grievous downfall alike happens to be their penchant for emotion and though I may not be fully human anymore, I am still subject to these swings too. It is a blessing and a curse, I suppose. So let me try again.

There are many things that I feel guilty about. Some of it I shouldn’t feel guilty about but other things have been rightfully notched in the Naughty column for my name. There are things that I wish to be forgiven for and some things that I need to be forgiven for. Forgiveness cannot always be earned and instead, sometimes we have to settle for the fact that we may never receive that and find closure in our own way. If I had to put a name to my sins, they would be the following…

Guilt… for killing too many to count. Too many to count and too many to name. Men, women, old, young. In the name of the Sanctum, in the name of capricious deities, in the name of business, in the name of blind justice, in the name of anger, in the name of hatred. So many have died by my hands, how can I possibly prove myself as a giver of life. Why should I get any say in who gets to live or die or come back? The blood on my hands could paint the sky red from sunrise to sunset and I would still have some to spare.

Guilt… for pushing those that care about me away in the name of… of what? Independence and proving that I am enough on my own to stand alone against the world? An Army of One, that is what I claimed to be. It came at the cost of alienating my sister, the last piece I have of a world I will never see again and of a family that is no more save for the two of us. We are the last of the Farrons, she and I. Our father had no brothers and we had no other siblings. The name will die with us. I thought… I thought I did a good job bringing Serah up. I worked hard, I gave us a good home, a stable life, food on the table and clothes on our backs. I thought I did right by her. I just did not realize that it was at the cost of our bond. Of her security in who she was and where she fit in the world. It drove her away from me and I think that is singlehandedly the primary reason for why we are where we are today. If it weren’t for me pushing her away, she would have never ended up with Snow, she would have never ended up a l’Cie, we would have never ended up Purged from Bodhum. None of it would have happened and it all started because I was too arrogant and selfish to realize what I was doing.

Guilt… for not saving those I could because surely I could have done more before the world came crashing down in an apocalyptic fit to end all fits.

Guilt… for not doing more to protect and respect my marriage. I loved that man more than anything but it did not keep me from degrading our matrimony with dalliances and poor priorities. So long as we went home to each other at the end of the day, little mattered, or at least that is what we said, but I could see how my choices affected him. I should have been with him more. I should have told him every chance I got just how much he meant to me. I should have kept my promises. I should have protected him as I was tasked to do. I should have been there the day he died, rules be damned.

Guilt… for ruining Zack and Raven. Raven says it isn’t my fault but I can’t help but think otherwise. Zack and I were… we were something else. Something transcendent, inexplicable, ephemeral. But when Noct died, the guilt was too much. I could not look at Zack without thinking about everything that I had squandered and lost. I told him I could not do what we had been doing for so long. He understood. After all, we were friends before we were lovers. But not long after… he ended things with Raven. I thought that maybe by breaking things off with Zack that it would give him and Raven a chance at succeeding where I could not. And he just… ended things. Broke their family apart. Dropped off the face of the planet for the most part, only popping up when it was convenient for him. I am not responsible for the actions or reactions of others, but the twinge of guilt that pains me for the dissolution of their family is a thorn in my side that I do not think I will ever rid myself of. Every time I look at Raven and Adelaide I am reminded too of what they have lost. Raven may be trying to move on, but Addie misses her daddy, I think, and that is my fault.

Guilt… for eating Terry’s cookies that were meant for one of her classes at St. Mary’s. I did not realize they were for the kids but they were so good so I can only feel bad a little bit. After all, the rest of that guilt is pretty heavy as is, you know?

If I had to ask for forgiveness, I would ask the following people…

Serah, for not being there as I should have been.

Noctis, for not saving him and for not giving him everything that he truly deserved.

Zack, for not loving him the way he deserved.

Raven, for enabling an affair that resulted in the ruination of her family.

Terry, for the cookies.

Averia and Alexander, for not doing more to ensure that their father would be able to see them grow up.

Adelaide the younger, for breaking her family up.

Adelaide the older, for failing to protect her from the future or the past.

Nikolai, for not realizing sooner just what he thought had to be done and for allowing a future in which the choices of my daughter resulted in the death of his father and ultimately his death too.

Kruger, for much the same reasons as I would ask Nikolai to forgive me, because he deserved better than what he got.

Lila, for not being the mother that she deserved in either of her timelines.

Cooper, for dragging him into the mess that is my life with little regard for how it would impact his.

I could come up with more… surely I have wronged many over my years. Large and small, my transgressions are things that I will spend the entirety of my lifespan atoning for. I try to learn from each one, to make sure that I do not repeat them, but it feels as though try as I might, some things simply slip through my fingers before I can catch them, shattering upon the ground into a million glittering pieces. Beautiful and broken and too sharp to touch.

I thought this journaling thing was supposed to make me feel better. Instead I am quite convinced that I am legitimately an awful person.

--Claire

[Claire Gallows]

“Gio, I am the last person that should be actively mentoring or helping an impressionable young kid. You know this as well as I do, so again, why do you think this Mini Mentee Initiative thing is something I need to do?” Rhetorically speaking, she still would bet real silver that he would answer anyways. Giovanni Diamante was a persuasive man after all and the woman sitting across the narrow cafe table from him was always a hard sell. He called her good practice though.

“Exposure. And contrary to popular belief otherwise, you are not as terrible as you make yourself out to be.” It was only eleven in the morning which meant that standard alcoholic drinks were frowned upon, so Gio lifted his vodka soaked screwdriver for a long drink instead. November was crisp but autumn was still warm, leaving the pair to brunch on the front patio of an out of the way bistro in the old market.

“Except I am. That’s what I am trying to tell you. I am literally the worst possible influence on a child or young adult or whatever they would be having us mentee.” Claire had foregone alcohol in favor of straight black coffee laced with a single spoonful of sugar to lessen the bite.

“You give yourself far too much credit in the horrible department, Light.” Gio chuckled and set his glass down.

“You know who isn’t terrible? Terry and Hope. They would be great for something like this.” Because when in doubt, throw your teammates under the Gio bus instead.

“That is a terrific idea, actually. All three of you participating in this event would be an especially nice show of team solidarity. Add to the fact that all three of you are Barons and you hold a title in Fists, it is the perfect storm of qualifications.” Well that definitely had not gone the way Claire had hoped. She stared at him across a spread of toast and fresh fruit, eggs benedict and pancakes, almost as if he had grown a third arm from the back of his head.

“That… is not at all what I meant.” She protested. Gio’s smile grew.

“I know it isn’t but it will be now. See, isn’t negotiation great?”

“You are literally the worst ever.” Claire muttered, stabbing the corner of her toast into the center of an over easy egg. Yellow yolk erupted from the puncture, oozing across the white until it could pool on the plate underneath.

“Which would mean that you are not. Therefore, you acknowledge that I was correct all along.” Smug, Gio lifted his screwdriver again.

“No, I do not acknowledge this because it is two separate categories of terrible. On one hand, you have me in the terrible influence category and on the other hand, we have you, in the terrible boss category.” She explained while she mopped up the yolk with the toast.

“Technically speaking, you’re my boss. But that is just semantics.” The fae cambion shrugged, smirking behind his glass.

“Technically speaking I am going to put my foot up your ass.” She answered maturely.

“Oooh, kitten has claws. Color me terrified.” He deadpanned, trying not to laugh as her ire rose. After a moment he broke into a light smile and shrugged once more. “Really though, you do wonderfully with the youth at the center and the children at Dragon’s Gate adore you. This is pretty much the epitome of opportunity for one in your position. You have plenty to give with your influence and in turn it brings us good press. So, you can do it or you can do it. Those are your choices.”

“Some choices…” Claire mumbled through a mouthful of toast. After swallowing she sighed. “Fine. I will give it a go. Be sure to get Hope and Terry on board for your little solidarity thing and I will show up tomorrow bright and early and full of good influence or whatever.”

[Claire Gallows]

November 6th, 2016

Dear Journal,

Today I sold my soul to the devil. That devil has a name and it is Giovanni Diamante. Also, I am being terribly overdramatic. It isn’t the end of the world but Gio has wrangled me (and hopefully Hope and King) for the sake of this thing called the Mini Mentee Initiative. It is where we take on an at risk youth kid child person to mentor on a one to one level for a few weeks. I tried to convince him that I am literally the worst possible person ever to do something like this, but does he listen? Nope, never. Gio is, long of the short, a brat like that.

He assured me that I would be just fine and that this is along the lines of everything else that I have worked toward doing for the city. I do not quite believe him but like everything else that is being thrown at me lately, I am trying to take it in stride and do what I can to make it happen. Sure this directly contradicts the whole “not spreading myself too thin” thing. But hey, I am damned if I do and I am damned if I do not. May as well try to make people happy if I can.

Serah and I lost our parents before we should have and growing up without them left the sort of impact that made me believe that if I had the means to help those in similar situations that I would. It is hard to keep your family together when you are only kids but somehow we did it. Other kids are not so lucky. There are siblings that are split up and separated when they lose their parents. They are put into the system where they are shuffled between foster homes and group homes. Sometimes they slip through the cracks and end up homeless on the streets. They are more likely to drop out of school and are more susceptible to mental illness and substance abuse issues. Serah and I got lucky. Somehow I managed to keep us together even when the social workers encouraged us to split up because it would be easier to get into foster homes that way. If we were lucky, they said, we would be able to stay in Bodhum and go to the same school.

Luckily the family court codes in Cocoon are different than they are in many other places. They gave me a chance to prove myself, believing that truly it took a village to raise a child and thankfully our community helped us where they could. The first two years were pretty rough as far as adjustments go but after that, I joined the Guardian Corps junior reserves and as soon as I was out of high school, I went straight into the Security Regiment. Things were tight for awhile but eventually we were comfortable.

There are kids here in Rhy’din that do not get that opportunity. That do not have the sort of “village” willing to help take care of them and make sure they thrive. They are used and abused, taken advantage of and tossed aside as if they mean nothing. It is what pushed us to found the Dragon’s Gate Orphanage. Almost three years now it has been in place and in that time, we have helped almost two hundred kids. Fifty have aged out of the home. Seventy-two have been adopted or placed in permanent homes. Another sixty-five currently live at the home. That’s the sort of work that I am proud of. That is how I ensure that these children get the upbringing they deserve. For those that have aged out of DGO or those who may not have the best opportunities in life at a young age, we also founded a youth centre in Dockside.

It gives us a presence on both sides of town and programs for two particularly susceptible groups. Children without parents and young adults without support systems. Adulting is hard enough as is. The Farron-Queen Centre tries to make it a little easier for those who may not have the same advantages as everyone else. I know it seems pretty egotistical to have something like that named after me, but it isn’t. It is named for Lila… who is a part of me only not in this time. Remember how I said time is a tricky thing? Yeah. She came from another timeline, the child of a shade of me that I would rather not think about. I failed her. She did not make it. Now I am trying to make sure that no young adult ever feels as alone as she did.

I put time and money and energy into these things in hopes of… I do not know, making things better. I do it because I can. Because I have to. Because I owe it to the universe. My influence, however, isn’t exactly the best suited thing for accomplishing these things. Gio thinks otherwise so I am going to put on my best grown up guise, try not to swear too much, and hope I do not scar this kid for life. We’ll see how terribly this goes…

--Claire

[Claire Gallows]

“Did you have fun?” Claire nervously asked the preteen standing awkwardly at the edge of the crowd readying to depart the Outback after a day full of food, activities, and dress up.

“It was alright, I guess.” The scrawny girl answered with a shrug. Silveriana was a twelve year old “Rhydinian Special”, or so she called herself. At least half human, she still carried characteristics of her mixed blood in the form of gently pointed ears and grey markings that made beautiful patterns across her tanned skin. The young girl had wide amber eyes that cut with a world weary sharpness behind a slanted fringe of straight tawny hair.

“Oh… well, we were thinking about taking a few of the mentees to this pretty cool obstacle course gym a little ways away. Do you want to go with us?” She asked, unsure of what the girl would say. Claire had tried her best to bond with the child throughout the day, going so far as to step into the Ring of Truth to share that she and her sister had grown up without parents too in hopes that maybe such a fact would make it easier to relate to her for her orphaned mentee. Silveriana, or Silver as she insisted on being called, had squinted pretty intently at Claire after that, as if trying to decide if she was being truthful or not. Eventually it seemed to make her relax a little bit but still, the preteen was quiet at best and standoffish at worst.

“I dunno… that sounds kind of lame…” Silver said reluctantly. Claire’s shoulders dropped slightly and she looked away, searching the crowd for a familiar face that might be able to help her out.

“Yeah, climbing giant rock walls is pretty lame. Zip lines too… those are totally lame…” Claire clucked her tongue and shrugged a bit, tugging her jacket on and zipping it up. “Well, thanks for putting up with me for today, Silver. It was nice to meet you.”

“Wait… I guess ziplines and rock walls are not totally lame… Can I still go?” Silver asked softly. Claire tried not to show too much of her relief when she looked back to the girl.

“If you want. Maybe afterwards we can get something to eat, if you’re hungry.” Claire offered, waiting for the departing crowd to thin a little bit more before stepping for the Outback’s double doors.

“Like at a real restaurant?” The girl perked a bit. She had already hit the sort of growth spurt that makes some girls older than most of the boys at that age, something readily evident when she actually stood up straight instead of slouching. Claire could not help but chuckle as she nodded, ushering Silver through the doorway and following after her.

“Yeah, if you want. Ever been to the Sassy Owl Saloon in the marketplace? If we go there, we can have whatever we want.” Claire said in a tone low enough to be considered conspiratorial.

“Whatever we want?” Silver whispered back, her eyes widening further behind her too long bangs.

“Whatever you can think up. It is like magic.” Claire nodded once and led the girl to where Claire had parked her Jeep.

“Magic is kind of lame…” The girl protested, climbing into the back of the black Jeep and buckling up.

“Not food magic. Food magic is the coolest thing ever, just you wait and see.” She answered as she hauled herself up into the driver’s seat, buckled her seatbelt, and glanced back to make sure Silver had done the same. Taking that opportunity to flash the girl a reassuring grin, with that they were off for the gym and a little bit of that food magic Claire had talked about. It was totally a thing.

[Claire Gallows]

November 7th, 2016

Dear Journal,

Gio won the battle of the Mini Mentee Initiative and thankfully it did not end in disaster. I was paired with a twelve year old girl named Silver. As soon to be teenaged girls are wont to do, Silver did not seem to be a fan of any of it. Obviously it was all too “lame” for her liking. But I did my part and neither of us died by the end of it. We spent the morning at the Outback doing crafts and other activities. Afterwards, Terry, Hope, and I took our mentees to the Stones Moves Obstacle Course Gym to let them have a little fun. I have found that when it comes to “fun”, few can resist the draw of trampolines, rock walls, and ziplines. Once they were all pretty worn out, we went back to the Sassy Owl for dinner before the kids went back to their respective homes. It took all day, but Silver finally opened up a little bit to me on the ride home.

She lost her parents when she was five. An adventuring accident, she said, killed them both. She and her older brother were left with their maternal grandmother. Unfortunately she was rather elderly when the kids were placed with her and just after Silver’s seventh birthday, she passed away, leaving the children with no family and no way to provide for themselves. Earlier in the day I told her about Serah and I and how we had grown up without our parents too. I think maybe it helped her realize that even if this happens that you can still make it in this strange, fucked up world.

Silver and her brother, she called him Gold, which was short for… I can’t remember, Goldsmithson or something like that, they came to the city on their own. He was ten, she was seven, and they lived on the street for two years before Gold disappeared. He just did not come home one day. Silver took a job in the manufacturing sector of Dockside, making the sort of “finery” that gets sold in some of the mid-range pseudo-boutiques in the market. A lot of the mass produced stuff that still gets to claim that it was handmade in Rhydin for those who place an importance on such a thing. She worked twelve to fourteen hours a day and lived in a “dorm” for the kids who worked there. It was just the basement of the factory, she said, full of triple high bunk beds from wall to wall. They were given rations twice daily, meager things hardly meant for growing children. The kicker for it all, their room and board was taken out of their wages (which were also shit, mind you) so by the time their weekly paychecks came, Silver made about thirty silver a week. Thirty. Nobles. A. Week.

There are people that rack up three times that on their nightly tabs at the Owl. Thirty silver is nothing to me these days. I passively make that without doing anything at all in like… Two hours. But once upon a time that would have been real money to me. I can’t fathom busting my ass (at nine or ten years old at that) for half the day, only to walk away with those sort of conditions and that horrific of pay.

Eventually, the Watch raided the sweatshop (because let’s be real, that is exactly what it was) and broke it up. Something like forty kids were dispersed amongst the city’s homes and the like. A few went back to the streets but most ended up spread between places like Dragon’s Gate, the Rhydin Orphanage, High Spires, so on and so forth. If I recall correctly, DGO got eight of them. I guess at the time I did not really think about just what sort of an impact such a thing would have on those kids. Silver has been in a group home ever since. Still has not heard from nor seen her brother since he disappeared. She goes to Rhydin Middle School, a common thing for kids who do not have parents that can pay for private education and do not necessarily qualify for scholarships. In her twelve years, she has seen and experienced more hardship than most people do in a lifetime and she has gone through most of it alone.

At the very least, I had Serah through the worst of it. The group home that Silver lives at seems okay. It is a little crowded according to her but in a city where it seems like there are more children than available homes, that is not exactly uncommon to hear. She shares a room with four other girls and overall the house has around twenty kids. Their houseparents are nice but she says it is difficult to get any sort of individualized attention because there are just so many kids and only two adults. It is hard not to feel bad for her but more than anything, I want to help her. While I do not exactly think of myself as prime parent material, if I had a way to guarantee these kids got the love and attention they deserved, then I would do so for every single one of them. When I finally got her home, she remembered to thank me for the day but said nothing about anything going forward. I do not exactly blame her, I guess. Hanging out with a random stranger on the recommendation of one of the various intervention programs she has run across probably felt weird anyways.

I gave her my number anyways and let her know that if she needed anything to let me know. I doubt she will call. I am hardly a suiting positive influence for a kid that age. I swear too much, I am sarcastic and cynical, I drink too much, and I make a good portion of my living by fighting. Great influence, right? Anyways. Time will tell, I guess. If I do not hear anything, then I guess that will answer it. If she takes me up on it then cool. I have a soft spot for kids like her, anyone can tell you that much. I guess I see a little bit of myself in her story. It just as easily could have been Serah or I in Silver’s shoes and really, from one orphan to another, I have an obligation to help if she will let me.

Like I said, we will see. Maybe she will, maybe she won’t. Either way, I tried which is more than a lot of people in this fucked up city can say. Too many would gladly use these vulnerable kids for their own nefarious means and then cast them aside when they do not need them anymore. Just thinking about it is giving me flashbacks to Vanion and what he did… maybe I will cover that another time when I am not feeling so twitchy about it. Needless to say, he was a large motivator in the formation of the Dragon’s Gate Orphanage as well as a few other projects. But now is neither the time nor the place to talk about him. So we will leave it at this and come back another time.

--Claire

[Claire Gallows]

It was cold. Maybe too cold to have the twins out at such an ungodly buttcrack of dawn hour. But they always seemed to enjoy going on runs with Mommy, so shortly after their early morning breakfast, she strapped them both into the dual jogging stroller and set off for a circuit of the city. It gave her a little more resistance in her runs and it gave the twins a little bit of fresh air. Typically near the end of her run, one or both would be out cold in their seat and it would make getting them inside and down for a nap plenty easy compared to football carrying two grumpy, squirming toddlers up the back steps of the Sassy Owl Saloon to the apartment above.

The figure eight course took her around the Old Market district, down around Old Temple and back home again. Along the way, she played the part of breathless tour guide to two kids who clearly could not care less about whatever it was that their mother was rambling about.

“And that there is the Cardinal Inn which also doubles as the baronial manor of Old Market. Right now Lirssa al Amat is the Baron. Has been for awhile in fact. But once upon a time, Mommy had that barony. It was not for very long and you two are too little to remember it, but for a little bit it was ours. That was over a year ago.” By the time she was done explaining, they were past the Cardinal Inn and halfway down the block. “I wonder if Frank still makes that chili. Best in the city.”

“That spot right there is where Da kissed Mama for the first time in Rhydin. Wanna know what Mama did?” She asked. Neither twin broke from their quiet little twin babble between the two of them to offer anything but generalized sounds from the stroller. Claire continued anyways. “I threw a smoothie at him. Hit him right in the back because I could not believe that he would have the audacity to do such a thing. And you know what? A little over a year and a half later, we had you two little heathens. Crazy how that works, huh?”

“If you keep going that way, you can get to Seaside. It is not quite as pretty as Icarus Cove but for the city it isn’t bad. Mama’s been Baron there too.” Their turn took them away from the edge of Seaside to cross them down into the south side of town. The twins ooh’d and ah’d as they crossed the river, giggling wildly at the babbling water below. “Now we’re only a few blocks away from Minerva’s, who has the best smoothies in the city.”

“And up this way is the Old Temple Baronial Manor. Isn’t it pretty?” The towering church cut an impressive silhouette against a dreary grey sky, its bell tower reaching for the clouds as if its music could clear away the fog. “When you two were born, this was mine. In fact, I won it just a week or two before I told your Daddy that I was pregnant with you. Of course, at the time we only thought there was one of you, so imagine our surprise when we got two instead!”

“There is probably still a ghost in the basement there. Totally my bad. Call it a Devil’s Night party gone awry. I should probably feel bad but I really do not. I kind of miss the place… I think it might go down as one of my favorites no matter which I have.” Still rambling, still getting nothing out of the twins. They were quieting, a likely sign of impending naptime and so Claire turned the jogging stroller back toward the north side of the city, intent on the Sassy Owl Saloon’s finish line.