[ Claire's definition of home and what makes one is built around a life of never having a physical one, not until she was much older than Annabeth. Part of the reason she wants to sit and talk is to explain who she really is, and what her life has been like, not some made-up Singularity fantasy. Annabeth has let Claire in, and it feels like the right time to confide in return. ]
It will only continue to get easier from here. Before you know it, you'll be able to close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and there you'll be. [ The cookies are placed on the counter and she nods. ] Thank you, dear. And you did see a cat. I didn't mean to call it into existence, I was being nostalgic and thinking about a cat I found in Cairo once. It was dehydrated and hungry, so I took it in, got it healthy and we had a little bond the rest of the time I was there. The Singularity must've decided I needed a companion.
[ She doesn't mind at all, though she's never named the cat. It's just there, and at times, comes inside to wind itself around her legs before leaving. Nodding toward the back door, she grabs a plate and begins transferring the cookies. ]
Now, should we go outside, or get comfortable on the couch?
[ Either way doesn't matter to her. ] And do you like coffee or would you like something different? [ The beauty of the Horizon is that there isn't any way to be a bad hostess, not when she can ask for anything. ]
[ it'll be reassuring to hear, when the time comes - that someone like claire struggled with the physicality of a home too. her eyes flicker briefly towards the window, like she's hoping the cat might come back, but the origin location of the feline catches her attention too. ]
You've been to Cairo? [ it's definitely on her bucket list. she, too, would probably end up attached to a stray should she ever end up in an old city for better reasons than the last one. ]
[ at the question, she peers around the house, like she doesn't know what's better. annabeth loves being outdoors, but there's something so cozy about this place that she sits on it for a few moments and goes for answering the latter inquiry first. ]
Coffee, please. [ it's much easier to look put together in the horizon, but annabeth regularly runs on bad sleep schedule and at least two cups of coffee a day. ]
Maybe snacks inside, then we can look around outside after? I can carry the cookies, if you want. [ she must be useful!! ]
I lived there for a little while when I was nine or ten. [ This is the easiest segue into her life, might as well start young, and she grabs two coffee mugs as she smiles fondly in remembrance. ] I found a cat and a cute boy, while my uncle was digging up artifacts. That was in nineteen...twenty-eight, somewhere in there.
[ With the living room decided on, Claire slides the plate of cookies over. ] Then that's what we'll do, and thank you. I'll be right behind you with the coffee. [ Busying herself with getting everything arranged on a tray, she knows it would be easier and certainly much faster to simply let the Horizon do all of the work. She likes it though, likes being busy with her hands, so in her own domain, she usually does the work.
When she gets to the living room, the tray is put down on the table in front of them, milk and sugar there if Annabeth wants it. Pouring the coffee, she picks up her anecdote about Cairo once she settles on the couch. It's cozy but not too deep so no one struggles to get up, the cushions a deep navy blue with dark wood trim. ]
If my memory's correct, we were in Egypt around sixteen months, and then we went somewhere in the East. It all blurs together a bit sometimes, we moved so often. I think that's why a home like this was the first thing that came to mind when I made it to the Horizon. It's a home I chose, something I had a say in.
[ It's the same with her home in Solvunn and why it means something to her. The home she lived in for 20 years raising her daughter never felt like her home. Frank picked it, Frank hired the decorator for it, Frank loved it. Frank brought his mistress there. It was never Claire's to sink roots into, she never wanted to be there in the first place. ]
[ she's glad to take the cookies, glad to have something to do with her hands as she tries to get comfortable with the welcoming nature of claire's house. it's familiar in some ways thanks to those fake eight hundred years, enough that annabeth feels like she knows how to go through the motions, but she wants to keep busy enough to avoid overthinking it anyway. ]
[ she sits on the couch and her attention darts to the mention of the year immediately. ]
I was wondering about that - if you were from another time compared to me. [ just little things claire had said, back in nocwich. ]
[ the other parts of claire's experience in the horizon are a little familiar too, though that much isn't born of illusions. isn't that what she's been trying to more or less do in her own horizon? figure out how to make a house? dare she say it, a home? she reaches for a cookie and shoves about half of it in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully while she shoves that out of her head and focuses on the curiosity of claire's seemingly adventurous life. ]
Did you always move around with your uncle? Was he an archaeologist or... [ wait, how can she be. polite about this. early 20th century archaeologists desecrated her mother's most famous temple. when annabeth finds you, lord elgin... she wrinkles her nose. ] Sorry, I promise I'm not trying to accuse him of being a thief. But I know what it used to be like.
[ Taking a cookie as well, she bites into it and nods as Annabeth comes to her realization. ] You know I used to hide it? Because somehow, a version of being taken to another place unwillingly has happened to me before, and I didn't want to mix up my own timelines. We'll get to that, and clearly I've relaxed about it. I didn't even notice I slipped.
[ She doesn't want to make things more confusing than they could possibly be, by jumping around her life. ] My uncle was an archeologist, someone's told me about a movie...Indiana Jones? Sort of similar from what I've been told, only, we stayed where we were once something significant was found, and worked with the locals to find out where it properly belonged.
[ Lamb had always stressed the importance of museums and artifacts staying in their location of origin, to stay where it was found to tell the story of an entire people. ] In return, I was given local tutors, taught the language and customs. It was my version of school from the time I was four until I was eighteen. Every continent except Antarctica, though not for lack of trying on Lamb's part.
[ It was unconventional, and she loved it then, but it didn't make things easy, and after a pause, she looks at Annabeth with a rueful smile. ]
I didn't do very well with others when I went to nursing school. I had to learn.
[ she lets the timeline remarks go for now, if only because claire essentially promises it will come up again. ]
[ annabeth finishes chewing her cookie, then gets settled into making her coffee. she dumps about three spoonfuls of sugar in it for extra sweetness, topping it off with a small pour of milk. she takes a sip and briefly closes her eyes. she's missed coffee. but she definitely nods approvingly as claire explains how they worked with locals. ]
I'm not sure how accurate Indiana Jones is to archaeology at all, but I'm sure the locals really appreciated your uncle's style. There was a lot of theft in the earlier years of it - and it still happens - as I'm sure you probably saw in the field.
My schooling's been a little unconventional too. [ commiseration! ] You're a nurse? [ she pauses, briefly thinking it over before she nods again. ] That makes sense.
[ Annabeth makes coffee the way the Doctor does; it took one of the more modern teens to explain a Starbucks to Claire, with all of the different coffee drinks that seem to her to be mostly sugar and milk. That's the future though, apparently, so she thinks nothing of it, only adding a little milk to hers. Then she nods seriously at the statement Annabeth makes. She makes a mental note to ask about her schooling, curious but acknowledging what was said. ]
We did see theft quite often. And of course, now there are so many museums on two continents filled with things that most certainly didn't originate there. I never knew how to feel about taking my daughter to the Smithsonian and its adjacent campuses at times, when I knew where things originated from, and where they should've been.
[ She remembers late nights of Lamb and his partner fretting, planning, sometimes arguing over it. Moving on and grabbing another cookie, this time Claire nibbles as she nods. Antiquities can always be circled back to. For now, she moves forward. ]
I was a nurse, then I went to medical school and became a surgeon. First woman to graduate Harvard medical. [ She says that with pride, will always mention it, because she overcame harassment, belittlement, sexism and misogyny, and she fought to be in the top of her class, to then go on to be the best trauma surgeon in the greater Boston area. ] I didn't think I would do any of that, to be completely honest with you.
[ Here, they finally come to a point where Claire feels she can segue a bit. ]
I'd decided on nursing school, and about halfway through, the second world war started. Everything was fast-tracked, there was no graduation ceremony. We were rushed through and shipped out, and I was on battlefields for five years or so. I was only a little older than you. [ Both of them having to do impossible things young; Claire knows but hates that Annabeth will understand, even keeping in mind that Annabeth is hardly a typical young woman. ] I was married, too. I'd known Frank for a while, he was a historian my uncle worked with. We were married around a month before he was shipped off, so I knew him, but I didn't know him.
[ sometimes she goes for a black coffee, when she really needs that caffeinated boost. ]
[ she's always known claire was certainly old enough to be a (mortal) mother, but she spins her life story and annabeth can feel the longevity it in, even if it's not objectively long. it's almost silly to think so after the stupid illusion, but she hears it and she wants that too. she wants to get older and not feel like even just eighteen remains a challenge to reach. ]
[ and she has a real daughter out there. ]
That's really impressive. [ she does not mean it lightly. ] My dad went to Harvard, so. [ gonna zoom past that quickly. ] I know how hard you must have worked, especially if you were the first woman in that program.
[ annabeth has never taken the advantages of her current era as a young woman lightly, especially when she sometimes still feels like she has to work extra hard to prove herself. ]
[ she's also very much been on the battlefield, though not in a medical capacity. she absently touches her arm, where a scar from a dagger wound peeks out from under her orange t-shirt sleeve. ]
Is that why you told me not to get married so young? [ it's half a joke, but it leaves the segue open to whichever direction claire wants to take it. ] It can't have been easy to be a surgeon at that time.
[ Claire smiles at the compliment, tucks away the knowledge about her father, and then takes a breath, letting it out softly. After tracking Annabeth's movement to her arm, her eyes drop to her coffee mug, lips pursed a bit in thought at the question. ] I think what you and Percy have is different—better—than what I had my first go at marriage. I think you have something that's much stronger, even at your age.
[ Annabeth is living a life that's nothing like Claire's was, she isn't marrying for assurance and peace of mind for a dying uncle instead of love. ]
I married young for the wrong reasons. I think the threat of war made a lot of people do things they may not have. I married Frank and then we both went our separate ways within...oh, about a year? War was declared and we both shipped off. And after, when we were changed by everything we'd seen and done through five years of hell—[ Claire looks at Annabeth and offers an almost sheepish one-shouldered shrug. ]—we were strangers again. And then I accidentally traveled in time.
[ Claire has told this story before, she isn't shy about it anymore, not when so many others have stories odder than hers. ]
I didn't choose to go, people here have explained that I must have stepped through an unchecked portal to the 18th century. I did choose to stay, though. I fell in love, which I hadn't counted on. It's how I realized I...respected Frank, I loved that he made me feel taken care of. But I wasn't in love with him.
[ She never knows what any given person will think; leaving a husband behind to wonder while she builds a new life so far away he couldn't have even fathomed it. And now, here she is doing it again in Abraxas. ]
I've seen the way you light up when you talk about Percy. [ She offers a warm smile. She never felt that, exactly, for Frank. ] I think it's wonderful.
[ annabeth can feel her face soften despite herself. she does want a long life with percy, but she also wants to take it day by day, to take it slow, and actually have the time to appreciate it all. maybe they'll be allowed to sit out the next war. but claire's not wrong. what she has with him already is stronger than anything she ever thought possible for herself, given the trajectory of people who have or were supposed to love her in the past. ]
He's... my best friend. [ it feels too simple, just like calling him her boyfriend never feels like enough anymore. he's her friend and her family and he is everything to her; she doesn't regret saying so to her mother, no matter the reaction it helped her earn. ] We have each other's backs. We always have and always will. [ a beat. ] Wars and all.
[ then five years of hell momentarily makes her blanch, but she swoops the coffee to her lips to take a sip to deter it - and almost spits it back out as claire casually drops the time travel comment. but at least the thoughts of tartarus that threatened to break in are abated. she stares at the older woman for a moment, surprised but thoughtful. ]
Accidentally traveled through time? How does that happen by - accident? [ how does that happen at all should be the real question, but she supposes it's all tied together. she says portal, but that could mean anything. ] Did you trip or something? Like, is this a common problem where you're from?
[ she'll come back to frank and the decision to stay in a minute, but she wants to understand more about the how first. it's just how she is. ]
[ She doesn't notice that her comment caused any sort of distress, even if momentary. She did expect questions and with Annabeth, she has no qualms about answering anything. Claire can't help but laugh softly in anticipation of her reaction because it is, truly, bizarre. ] So, full disclosure, I don't know how it works and I wouldn't have thought to call it a portal until speaking to others here.
[ Credit where credit is due, she understands more now than she used to thanks to the knowledge of others. ] I touched a rock. I was picking flowers and heard a buzzing sound, similar to a beehive. When I realized it was coming from a large rock, I reached out and touched it, and then everything went dark. I woke up, and after a lot of fear and confusion, it became clear I'd traveled back to the 18th century. Two-hundred years.
[ Claire takes a sip of her coffee, shaking her head. ] I don't think it was especially common, but it happened enough that a song was written about it. A ballad.
[ she makes a bit of a face over the rock comment, but ultimately just rolls with it. ]
I can't imagine suddenly being two hundred years in the past. [ the magic rock being the cause isn't that unbelievable, she supposes, when she thinks about the sheer number of chaotic magic items at home. ]
Was there a rock back then too, to go back home? I know you said you chose to stay, but... [ the idea of being stuck there is kind of alarming. ]
A ballad? [ she sounds especially curious about that. ] I feel like songs and poems can tell a lot more than people give them credit for sometimes, especially folk tales and oral history. Did you know it before you... time traveled?
Everything was quite literally the same, down to the rock. I woke up and had no clue anything was actually different. I was in pain, it was like...[ She pauses, trying to think of a good way to put it, always only able to come back to one thing. ] It was like being in a car accident, being tossed upside down and yet somehow still being contained. Hitting against something, being knocked about.
[ She's felt it each time she's traveled, worse every time. She shakes her head at Annabeth's question, thinking back to that night in Castle Leoch when she thought getting back to her time would be as easy as stealing a horse and riding away. ]
I didn't know it, but when I heard it, it gave me quite a bit of hope, because the woman in the ballad goes back to her own time after returning to the rock. That's all I wanted for so long, to just go home. But with no cars, and no easy way to travel as a woman on my own, I was captured almost immediately after I arrived. I thought I was in a war reenactment for about a day, I don't think my mind could accept the reality of my situation.
[ Claire looks around the her little horizon home, then exhales, shaking her head at herself. ] At least I adapted to this better. Although for a week, I wouldn't leave my host's house.
[ annabeth winces in sympathy. she might not have been in any car accidents, but she definitely knows the pains of being tossed around and knocked unconscious to the level described. she's had a surprising number of bad injuries. ]
Ow. Talk about a nasty side effect.
[ then she frowns as claire explains the notion and fears of being stuck, knowing how lucky she is to live in her own time, as a girl. she thinks about her father and how untethered she is to him, how different her life might have been even a hundred years ago. ]
I can't say I blame you for not getting it right away. I mean, who touches a rock and assumes they're getting sent back in time? [ she's been through plenty of difficult to process experiences, some of which she's still working through, but time travel isn't in her repertoire, and she'd like to keep it that way. ]
It sounds... difficult. I can't even imagine. And you still chose to stay, despite all that?
[ she follows claire's gaze as she looks around the house, her domain. ] I kind of wanted to nap for a week after getting here, so maybe hauling up upon arrival isn't that strange all things considered.
[ Claire thinks back to the moment she knew she was staying. It was a moment of realizing she'd loved Frank for the security he brought her, the basic decency of him (at first), but she wasn't in love with him. Not the way she fell in love with a man who gave up everything to rescue her. ]
I chose to stay because I fell in love. [ She looks down at her coffee cup, thumb lightly grazing the rim. ] It wasn't instant, but Jamie took care of me, and then to protect me with the name of his clan, he married me. I didn't want him, but I didn't want to be a prisoner on the grounds of being a spy, either. [ Her choices were limited, even in hindsight. She'd tried to escape on her own, and had been almost immediately captured by the worst possible man. ]
It took a while, but by the time he knew the truth of me and actually got me back to the stones, I realized I couldn't let him go.
[ Claire gives a helpless shrug and a small smile. It's the same with Jon now. After everything they shared together, her heart couldn't shut off hundreds of years of loving him. She's just glad he feels the same. ]
[ aphrodite would certainly find it romantic. annabeth supposes there's a part of her that thinks the same, even if she has a hard time imagining herself staying in the past with all her own ambitions. if it were for percy, it might be different - but either way she's glad it's not a choice she had to make. ]
[ there is no doubt in her mind that percy would stay with her though, no matter where she was. ]
[ and she can't help but offer claire a small smile of her own once she sees the expression on the woman's face. it's happy, and more than anything else, annabeth is just glad she was able to find a happiness. for all the kindness she's ever shown, illusion world or real one, she thinks claire deserves it. ]
What if he went with you instead? Was that an option?
[ Claire's smile falters just a little; it's impossible not to think of Culloden, of Jamie detouring to take her back to the stones against her will, and her desperate hope once she realized, that this time he would hear them, that he would come back with her. ]
He couldn't. He touched the rock and it was just a rock. But christ, I hoped. I hoped all the way to the stones something would happen. [ She gives a slow shrug of her shoulders, because she has no answers for that. ] We'd been at war, one I already knew Scotland would lose. I tried to change history, like a fool, but of course, I failed. History is history. [ Claire closes her eyes, remembers how hollowed out she felt the moment she woke up alone in the future, no sounds of cannon fire around her, no Jamie. Just the distant sound of traffic and a parting gift from her husband. ] I was pregnant, and we'd already lost one child. I had to go. I had to.
[ Her voice comes with a slight waver; it feels like an abrupt end to the story, she knows it. But even now, she can't go into some details despite knowing they're all together in the future past, her entire family, at least for a little while. The way she felt then, as if she were in a black hole of grief she could never quite pull herself all the way out of, it's too emotional to remember for long. ]
I don't—[ She clears her throat and wets her lips. ]—I don't talk about that part much. The leaving. Mostly because I ended up going back twenty years later, after Frank died and I realized Jamie survived the battle. It's easier to skip ahead, sometimes.
[ she frowns, sympathetically. there's a lot here annabeth can't even begin to imagine going through, and she's not sure she wants to try. she has plenty of her own shit to keep sorting through. but she can still feel for claire and the apparent chaos of time travel. ]
So the time traveling rock is picky. [ her tone is disdainful in a way meant to try and inject levity. she can see the way talking about it affects claire, and she doesn't really know if now's the time to offer a hug. she's better at figuring that out with people she knows well - and even though part of her still feels she does know claire, it's different. annabeth is working on it. ]
You don't have to talk about anything to me you don't want to. [ she hesitates a moment, but reaches out to give claire's arm a squeeze. ]
Twenty years? Was it the same time for him too? Or did you end up where you left off? [ she pauses. ] Was it - was that your daughter you mentioned before then?
Very picky. And we can't quite figure out everything it takes to go back and forth. I just know it's more difficult each time. [ Claire would rather go in the direction of levity, of lighter as soon as they can get there. Annabeth's gesture is met with a small but warm smile, and Claire covers her hand for a moment with her own.
She appreciates her words, and in truth, she wouldn't be telling Annabeth if she didn't trust her, didn't want to try and build something close to what they all shared. It felt nice, to be connected to others, a feeling that she's lacked for most of her life. ]
Twenty years for each of us. When I went back...well. We'd been apart longer than we'd ever known one another. It was awkward. And yes, it was Brianna, our daughter. I raised her, and then she encouraged me to go, to find Jamie again.
[ That feels like a happy note to end on, and not an untrue one. She can't believe sometimes that it's been nearly four years since she's seen her daughter, but Claire shoves that aside and reaches for another cookie. ]
If it gets harder every time, do you think that means one day it might be impossible? [ the question is out before she really thinks about stopping it - she's prone to idly musing aloud on her best and worst days. she does look vaguely apologetic after, because it probably is something claire might have considered, and annabeth doesn't want to make her think of the bad things. ]
[ she lets the whole story sink in for a few moments, processing it as she is wont to do, and idly sipping her coffee as she does, to give her something to do with her hands. it was bad enough being apart from an amnesiac percy for half a year thanks to hera's meddling. she can't fathom twenty years. she doesn't want to. ]
It's really complicated and wildly crazy... almost unbelievable, if we weren't sitting in another world already. [ she pauses. ] Thank you, for sharing it with me.
[ even without the nuances and details, she still appreciates the sentiment of learning this very big part of claire. it does explain a lot. ]
Did you find him again? Before you got pulled here?
[ Claire nods slowly as she chews a bite of the cookie. Once she swallows, answers thoughtfully. ] I think so. Which is why I won't ever try again. When I left Bree, I told her it would have to be forever. It wasn't easy to do. [ But in the end, she'd wanted everything with Jamie that was denied to them, to live the last half of her life the way she wanted.
Reaching out, she gently squeezes Annabeth's arm with her free hand, a look of warmth softening her gaze. ] I know who we are or were to one another other can be confusing right now. Sometimes it's a bit hard to reconcile, even now. But I believe we'll all figure it out. And I wanted you to know the real me, not what the Singularity made me into.
[ When Annabeth asks about a reunion, Claire nods, thinking back to the print shop, to the moment Jamie looked up and saw her, then promptly passed out. ] I did find him, yes. We spent a year and some months together before I was here. And now I've been apart from him again longer than we were reunited.
[ But she isn't sad about it this time. She can't go through all of that sadness and grief she just explained to Annabeth, a second time. She nearly did, stayed holed up, wrote to Jamie as if she were a prisoner of war. But then she made friends, she met others. She discovered magic. and so she's able to smile now, in a way that makes the corners of her eyes wrinkle. ]
But I've found a family here, and the friendships I think I've been looking for my entire life.
[ she doesn't quite know how to feel about that, but it's a far more complicated story than annabeth can truly understand, so she tries not to let her own struggles with parental abandonment color it. perhaps she simply wouldn't be surprised if her father left; in some ways, he'd been gone already long before she'd even run away. ]
Did Bree always know her dad was... in the past? [ that seems like the best way to phrase it. ]
[ but she does understand the desire to be known as herself, and not the god she became. annabeth doesn't want to be that person, even with all her own imperfections now - she doesn't want to transform into another version of her mother. she offers claire a small smile and a nod over it. ]
When things are confusing, we just have to... try and sort the pieces. I'm not that person either. Maybe if we think about it like a three dimensional puzzle...
[ a puzzle of people and emotions. but if she thinks about it like a problem to solve, it feels easier. ]
[ oh. annabeth hasn't found here what claire says she has - family and friends - but she does understand the wanting feeling too, so much so that she suddenly doesn't question why claire would like being here, despite the life she'd led back home. ]
I'm glad you've been able to settle in this place. After everything you've been through, you deserve a little peace.
[ Claire doesn't know how to feel about it either. She hadn't suggested going back at all, it was Bree, but it would be a complete lie to say her heart hadn't surged in her chest right then and there, already halfway to the past. Annabeth's question makes Claire look down which may be answer enough; for better or worse, she'd lied to Bree her entire life, and Claire faced the consequences of that. ]
No. No, she didn't know until Frank died because he forbade it. He had a condition for taking me back. [ She hated Frank for this for so long, but now it just makes her sad for herself, and for Bree, because it might've made things so much easier if she could've raised her daughter alone and peppered anecdotes about Jamie all through her life. Had Frank said yes to divorce any of the times Claire asked, she may never have been a doctor, but maybe her relationship with Bree would've been better. ]
He made me promise I would never speak of Jamie or the past ever again. Not to him, and never to Bree. He would love her and claim her as his, support us, and put me through medical school if I agreed. I asked for a divorce first, but he quickly pointed out I had nothing. After three years in the past, he had control of all the money. I never had a home of my own, I had no family and I was pregnant with nowhere to go. [ What else was she going to do? They both knew even when she asked, she couldn't refuse him. ]
He took everything I was wearing when I returned, everything in my pockets, which included little notes from Jamie, and he burned it to ash. The only thing he let me keep was Jamie's ring, and only that because it was simple silver, made out of a melted-down house key. So there was nothing. Nothing to show for what happened to me except for scars and Brianna herself.
[ And, as Bree so wonderfully pointed out, trying to tell the truth only made Claire look like a 'bored housewife who fucked another man.' Still, she's able to rally and offer Annabeth a small smile. ]
This entire story is why once happiness presented itself here—even with what I have waiting if we're ever forced to leave—I had to take it. I can't ache for something that might not ever be, or could be in two decades. Not again. It's exactly as you said, I deserve a little peace.
[ Which is easier for her to admit because Annabeth said it first. ]
[ the more claire describes frank, the more annabeth's face twists with disgust. she understands societal rules and expectations of different times, but it hardly sounds like jamie was this much of a dickhead and he was from the fucking 1700s. she is aware there could be plenty claire isn't touching on, but she will remain solid in her negative views of frank. she knows and likes claire. she doesn't care what frank was thinking with the context of everything claire has been through. ]
What an asshole.
[ she indignantly shoves another cookie in her mouth to stew on it, to settle with the smile claire offers at the end of it all in the face of the happiness she's managed to find here. it's a far cry from the more mature advice she might have offered claire in the illusion, but it's the truer annabeth version of support. she nods at the older woman's affirmation that she deserves it. ]
As peaceful as things can be in this place, I guess. There's a certain reprieve it offers, in spite of everything.
[ she once told claire she really appreciated thorne's beds, so she supposes she understands that experience of not taking the good of this place for granted. ]
figured we could probably wrap with your next tag?
[ Annabeth's assessment pulls an abrupt laugh out of Claire, a spit take if she'd had a mouthful of coffee. Luckily not, and she laughs until her side aches. ]
Truly, I've waited so long to hear someone else make that exact statement. Thank you, it feels validating in a way I can't explain.
[ She takes a deep breath that feels nice and cleansing and lets it out. ] We'll see how long the peace actually lasts. But I will say that here, I've been less afraid for myself as a woman. That alone is a reprieve from the 18th century.
[ With about half a cup of coffee left, she nods toward the back door. ] Would you like to go look now?
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no subject
It will only continue to get easier from here. Before you know it, you'll be able to close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and there you'll be. [ The cookies are placed on the counter and she nods. ] Thank you, dear. And you did see a cat. I didn't mean to call it into existence, I was being nostalgic and thinking about a cat I found in Cairo once. It was dehydrated and hungry, so I took it in, got it healthy and we had a little bond the rest of the time I was there. The Singularity must've decided I needed a companion.
[ She doesn't mind at all, though she's never named the cat. It's just there, and at times, comes inside to wind itself around her legs before leaving. Nodding toward the back door, she grabs a plate and begins transferring the cookies. ]
Now, should we go outside, or get comfortable on the couch?
[ Either way doesn't matter to her. ] And do you like coffee or would you like something different? [ The beauty of the Horizon is that there isn't any way to be a bad hostess, not when she can ask for anything. ]
no subject
You've been to Cairo? [ it's definitely on her bucket list. she, too, would probably end up attached to a stray should she ever end up in an old city for better reasons than the last one. ]
[ at the question, she peers around the house, like she doesn't know what's better. annabeth loves being outdoors, but there's something so cozy about this place that she sits on it for a few moments and goes for answering the latter inquiry first. ]
Coffee, please. [ it's much easier to look put together in the horizon, but annabeth regularly runs on bad sleep schedule and at least two cups of coffee a day. ]
Maybe snacks inside, then we can look around outside after? I can carry the cookies, if you want. [ she must be useful!! ]
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[ With the living room decided on, Claire slides the plate of cookies over. ] Then that's what we'll do, and thank you. I'll be right behind you with the coffee. [ Busying herself with getting everything arranged on a tray, she knows it would be easier and certainly much faster to simply let the Horizon do all of the work. She likes it though, likes being busy with her hands, so in her own domain, she usually does the work.
When she gets to the living room, the tray is put down on the table in front of them, milk and sugar there if Annabeth wants it. Pouring the coffee, she picks up her anecdote about Cairo once she settles on the couch. It's cozy but not too deep so no one struggles to get up, the cushions a deep navy blue with dark wood trim. ]
If my memory's correct, we were in Egypt around sixteen months, and then we went somewhere in the East. It all blurs together a bit sometimes, we moved so often. I think that's why a home like this was the first thing that came to mind when I made it to the Horizon. It's a home I chose, something I had a say in.
[ It's the same with her home in Solvunn and why it means something to her. The home she lived in for 20 years raising her daughter never felt like her home. Frank picked it, Frank hired the decorator for it, Frank loved it. Frank brought his mistress there. It was never Claire's to sink roots into, she never wanted to be there in the first place. ]
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[ she sits on the couch and her attention darts to the mention of the year immediately. ]
I was wondering about that - if you were from another time compared to me. [ just little things claire had said, back in nocwich. ]
[ the other parts of claire's experience in the horizon are a little familiar too, though that much isn't born of illusions. isn't that what she's been trying to more or less do in her own horizon? figure out how to make a house? dare she say it, a home? she reaches for a cookie and shoves about half of it in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully while she shoves that out of her head and focuses on the curiosity of claire's seemingly adventurous life. ]
Did you always move around with your uncle? Was he an archaeologist or... [ wait, how can she be. polite about this. early 20th century archaeologists desecrated her mother's most famous temple. when annabeth finds you, lord elgin... she wrinkles her nose. ] Sorry, I promise I'm not trying to accuse him of being a thief. But I know what it used to be like.
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[ She doesn't want to make things more confusing than they could possibly be, by jumping around her life. ] My uncle was an archeologist, someone's told me about a movie...Indiana Jones? Sort of similar from what I've been told, only, we stayed where we were once something significant was found, and worked with the locals to find out where it properly belonged.
[ Lamb had always stressed the importance of museums and artifacts staying in their location of origin, to stay where it was found to tell the story of an entire people. ] In return, I was given local tutors, taught the language and customs. It was my version of school from the time I was four until I was eighteen. Every continent except Antarctica, though not for lack of trying on Lamb's part.
[ It was unconventional, and she loved it then, but it didn't make things easy, and after a pause, she looks at Annabeth with a rueful smile. ]
I didn't do very well with others when I went to nursing school. I had to learn.
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[ annabeth finishes chewing her cookie, then gets settled into making her coffee. she dumps about three spoonfuls of sugar in it for extra sweetness, topping it off with a small pour of milk. she takes a sip and briefly closes her eyes. she's missed coffee. but she definitely nods approvingly as claire explains how they worked with locals. ]
I'm not sure how accurate Indiana Jones is to archaeology at all, but I'm sure the locals really appreciated your uncle's style. There was a lot of theft in the earlier years of it - and it still happens - as I'm sure you probably saw in the field.
My schooling's been a little unconventional too. [ commiseration! ] You're a nurse? [ she pauses, briefly thinking it over before she nods again. ] That makes sense.
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We did see theft quite often. And of course, now there are so many museums on two continents filled with things that most certainly didn't originate there. I never knew how to feel about taking my daughter to the Smithsonian and its adjacent campuses at times, when I knew where things originated from, and where they should've been.
[ She remembers late nights of Lamb and his partner fretting, planning, sometimes arguing over it. Moving on and grabbing another cookie, this time Claire nibbles as she nods. Antiquities can always be circled back to. For now, she moves forward. ]
I was a nurse, then I went to medical school and became a surgeon. First woman to graduate Harvard medical. [ She says that with pride, will always mention it, because she overcame harassment, belittlement, sexism and misogyny, and she fought to be in the top of her class, to then go on to be the best trauma surgeon in the greater Boston area. ] I didn't think I would do any of that, to be completely honest with you.
[ Here, they finally come to a point where Claire feels she can segue a bit. ]
I'd decided on nursing school, and about halfway through, the second world war started. Everything was fast-tracked, there was no graduation ceremony. We were rushed through and shipped out, and I was on battlefields for five years or so. I was only a little older than you. [ Both of them having to do impossible things young; Claire knows but hates that Annabeth will understand, even keeping in mind that Annabeth is hardly a typical young woman. ] I was married, too. I'd known Frank for a while, he was a historian my uncle worked with. We were married around a month before he was shipped off, so I knew him, but I didn't know him.
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[ she's always known claire was certainly old enough to be a (mortal) mother, but she spins her life story and annabeth can feel the longevity it in, even if it's not objectively long. it's almost silly to think so after the stupid illusion, but she hears it and she wants that too. she wants to get older and not feel like even just eighteen remains a challenge to reach. ]
[ and she has a real daughter out there. ]
That's really impressive. [ she does not mean it lightly. ] My dad went to Harvard, so. [ gonna zoom past that quickly. ] I know how hard you must have worked, especially if you were the first woman in that program.
[ annabeth has never taken the advantages of her current era as a young woman lightly, especially when she sometimes still feels like she has to work extra hard to prove herself. ]
[ she's also very much been on the battlefield, though not in a medical capacity. she absently touches her arm, where a scar from a dagger wound peeks out from under her orange t-shirt sleeve. ]
Is that why you told me not to get married so young? [ it's half a joke, but it leaves the segue open to whichever direction claire wants to take it. ] It can't have been easy to be a surgeon at that time.
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[ Annabeth is living a life that's nothing like Claire's was, she isn't marrying for assurance and peace of mind for a dying uncle instead of love. ]
I married young for the wrong reasons. I think the threat of war made a lot of people do things they may not have. I married Frank and then we both went our separate ways within...oh, about a year? War was declared and we both shipped off. And after, when we were changed by everything we'd seen and done through five years of hell—[ Claire looks at Annabeth and offers an almost sheepish one-shouldered shrug. ]—we were strangers again. And then I accidentally traveled in time.
[ Claire has told this story before, she isn't shy about it anymore, not when so many others have stories odder than hers. ]
I didn't choose to go, people here have explained that I must have stepped through an unchecked portal to the 18th century. I did choose to stay, though. I fell in love, which I hadn't counted on. It's how I realized I...respected Frank, I loved that he made me feel taken care of. But I wasn't in love with him.
[ She never knows what any given person will think; leaving a husband behind to wonder while she builds a new life so far away he couldn't have even fathomed it. And now, here she is doing it again in Abraxas. ]
I've seen the way you light up when you talk about Percy. [ She offers a warm smile. She never felt that, exactly, for Frank. ] I think it's wonderful.
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He's... my best friend. [ it feels too simple, just like calling him her boyfriend never feels like enough anymore. he's her friend and her family and he is everything to her; she doesn't regret saying so to her mother, no matter the reaction it helped her earn. ] We have each other's backs. We always have and always will. [ a beat. ] Wars and all.
[ then five years of hell momentarily makes her blanch, but she swoops the coffee to her lips to take a sip to deter it - and almost spits it back out as claire casually drops the time travel comment. but at least the thoughts of tartarus that threatened to break in are abated. she stares at the older woman for a moment, surprised but thoughtful. ]
Accidentally traveled through time? How does that happen by - accident? [ how does that happen at all should be the real question, but she supposes it's all tied together. she says portal, but that could mean anything. ] Did you trip or something? Like, is this a common problem where you're from?
[ she'll come back to frank and the decision to stay in a minute, but she wants to understand more about the how first. it's just how she is. ]
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[ Credit where credit is due, she understands more now than she used to thanks to the knowledge of others. ] I touched a rock. I was picking flowers and heard a buzzing sound, similar to a beehive. When I realized it was coming from a large rock, I reached out and touched it, and then everything went dark. I woke up, and after a lot of fear and confusion, it became clear I'd traveled back to the 18th century. Two-hundred years.
[ Claire takes a sip of her coffee, shaking her head. ] I don't think it was especially common, but it happened enough that a song was written about it. A ballad.
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I can't imagine suddenly being two hundred years in the past. [ the magic rock being the cause isn't that unbelievable, she supposes, when she thinks about the sheer number of chaotic magic items at home. ]
Was there a rock back then too, to go back home? I know you said you chose to stay, but... [ the idea of being stuck there is kind of alarming. ]
A ballad? [ she sounds especially curious about that. ] I feel like songs and poems can tell a lot more than people give them credit for sometimes, especially folk tales and oral history. Did you know it before you... time traveled?
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[ She's felt it each time she's traveled, worse every time. She shakes her head at Annabeth's question, thinking back to that night in Castle Leoch when she thought getting back to her time would be as easy as stealing a horse and riding away. ]
I didn't know it, but when I heard it, it gave me quite a bit of hope, because the woman in the ballad goes back to her own time after returning to the rock. That's all I wanted for so long, to just go home. But with no cars, and no easy way to travel as a woman on my own, I was captured almost immediately after I arrived. I thought I was in a war reenactment for about a day, I don't think my mind could accept the reality of my situation.
[ Claire looks around the her little horizon home, then exhales, shaking her head at herself. ] At least I adapted to this better. Although for a week, I wouldn't leave my host's house.
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Ow. Talk about a nasty side effect.
[ then she frowns as claire explains the notion and fears of being stuck, knowing how lucky she is to live in her own time, as a girl. she thinks about her father and how untethered she is to him, how different her life might have been even a hundred years ago. ]
I can't say I blame you for not getting it right away. I mean, who touches a rock and assumes they're getting sent back in time? [ she's been through plenty of difficult to process experiences, some of which she's still working through, but time travel isn't in her repertoire, and she'd like to keep it that way. ]
It sounds... difficult. I can't even imagine. And you still chose to stay, despite all that?
[ she follows claire's gaze as she looks around the house, her domain. ] I kind of wanted to nap for a week after getting here, so maybe hauling up upon arrival isn't that strange all things considered.
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I chose to stay because I fell in love. [ She looks down at her coffee cup, thumb lightly grazing the rim. ] It wasn't instant, but Jamie took care of me, and then to protect me with the name of his clan, he married me. I didn't want him, but I didn't want to be a prisoner on the grounds of being a spy, either. [ Her choices were limited, even in hindsight. She'd tried to escape on her own, and had been almost immediately captured by the worst possible man. ]
It took a while, but by the time he knew the truth of me and actually got me back to the stones, I realized I couldn't let him go.
[ Claire gives a helpless shrug and a small smile. It's the same with Jon now. After everything they shared together, her heart couldn't shut off hundreds of years of loving him. She's just glad he feels the same. ]
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[ there is no doubt in her mind that percy would stay with her though, no matter where she was. ]
[ and she can't help but offer claire a small smile of her own once she sees the expression on the woman's face. it's happy, and more than anything else, annabeth is just glad she was able to find a happiness. for all the kindness she's ever shown, illusion world or real one, she thinks claire deserves it. ]
What if he went with you instead? Was that an option?
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He couldn't. He touched the rock and it was just a rock. But christ, I hoped. I hoped all the way to the stones something would happen. [ She gives a slow shrug of her shoulders, because she has no answers for that. ] We'd been at war, one I already knew Scotland would lose. I tried to change history, like a fool, but of course, I failed. History is history. [ Claire closes her eyes, remembers how hollowed out she felt the moment she woke up alone in the future, no sounds of cannon fire around her, no Jamie. Just the distant sound of traffic and a parting gift from her husband. ] I was pregnant, and we'd already lost one child. I had to go. I had to.
[ Her voice comes with a slight waver; it feels like an abrupt end to the story, she knows it. But even now, she can't go into some details despite knowing they're all together in the
futurepast, her entire family, at least for a little while. The way she felt then, as if she were in a black hole of grief she could never quite pull herself all the way out of, it's too emotional to remember for long. ]I don't—[ She clears her throat and wets her lips. ]—I don't talk about that part much. The leaving. Mostly because I ended up going back twenty years later, after Frank died and I realized Jamie survived the battle. It's easier to skip ahead, sometimes.
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So the time traveling rock is picky. [ her tone is disdainful in a way meant to try and inject levity. she can see the way talking about it affects claire, and she doesn't really know if now's the time to offer a hug. she's better at figuring that out with people she knows well - and even though part of her still feels she does know claire, it's different. annabeth is working on it. ]
You don't have to talk about anything to me you don't want to. [ she hesitates a moment, but reaches out to give claire's arm a squeeze. ]
Twenty years? Was it the same time for him too? Or did you end up where you left off? [ she pauses. ] Was it - was that your daughter you mentioned before then?
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She appreciates her words, and in truth, she wouldn't be telling Annabeth if she didn't trust her, didn't want to try and build something close to what they all shared. It felt nice, to be connected to others, a feeling that she's lacked for most of her life. ]
Twenty years for each of us. When I went back...well. We'd been apart longer than we'd ever known one another. It was awkward. And yes, it was Brianna, our daughter. I raised her, and then she encouraged me to go, to find Jamie again.
[ That feels like a happy note to end on, and not an untrue one. She can't believe sometimes that it's been nearly four years since she's seen her daughter, but Claire shoves that aside and reaches for another cookie. ]
How's all that for a complicated history?
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[ she lets the whole story sink in for a few moments, processing it as she is wont to do, and idly sipping her coffee as she does, to give her something to do with her hands. it was bad enough being apart from an amnesiac percy for half a year thanks to hera's meddling. she can't fathom twenty years. she doesn't want to. ]
It's really complicated and wildly crazy... almost unbelievable, if we weren't sitting in another world already. [ she pauses. ] Thank you, for sharing it with me.
[ even without the nuances and details, she still appreciates the sentiment of learning this very big part of claire. it does explain a lot. ]
Did you find him again? Before you got pulled here?
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Reaching out, she gently squeezes Annabeth's arm with her free hand, a look of warmth softening her gaze. ] I know who we are or were to one another other can be confusing right now. Sometimes it's a bit hard to reconcile, even now. But I believe we'll all figure it out. And I wanted you to know the real me, not what the Singularity made me into.
[ When Annabeth asks about a reunion, Claire nods, thinking back to the print shop, to the moment Jamie looked up and saw her, then promptly passed out. ] I did find him, yes. We spent a year and some months together before I was here. And now I've been apart from him again longer than we were reunited.
[ But she isn't sad about it this time. She can't go through all of that sadness and grief she just explained to Annabeth, a second time. She nearly did, stayed holed up, wrote to Jamie as if she were a prisoner of war. But then she made friends, she met others. She discovered magic. and so she's able to smile now, in a way that makes the corners of her eyes wrinkle. ]
But I've found a family here, and the friendships I think I've been looking for my entire life.
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Did Bree always know her dad was... in the past? [ that seems like the best way to phrase it. ]
[ but she does understand the desire to be known as herself, and not the god she became. annabeth doesn't want to be that person, even with all her own imperfections now - she doesn't want to transform into another version of her mother. she offers claire a small smile and a nod over it. ]
When things are confusing, we just have to... try and sort the pieces. I'm not that person either. Maybe if we think about it like a three dimensional puzzle...
[ a puzzle of people and emotions. but if she thinks about it like a problem to solve, it feels easier. ]
[ oh. annabeth hasn't found here what claire says she has - family and friends - but she does understand the wanting feeling too, so much so that she suddenly doesn't question why claire would like being here, despite the life she'd led back home. ]
I'm glad you've been able to settle in this place. After everything you've been through, you deserve a little peace.
omfg i swear this is the last essay 😭
No. No, she didn't know until Frank died because he forbade it. He had a condition for taking me back. [ She hated Frank for this for so long, but now it just makes her sad for herself, and for Bree, because it might've made things so much easier if she could've raised her daughter alone and peppered anecdotes about Jamie all through her life. Had Frank said yes to divorce any of the times Claire asked, she may never have been a doctor, but maybe her relationship with Bree would've been better. ]
He made me promise I would never speak of Jamie or the past ever again. Not to him, and never to Bree. He would love her and claim her as his, support us, and put me through medical school if I agreed. I asked for a divorce first, but he quickly pointed out I had nothing. After three years in the past, he had control of all the money. I never had a home of my own, I had no family and I was pregnant with nowhere to go. [ What else was she going to do? They both knew even when she asked, she couldn't refuse him. ]
He took everything I was wearing when I returned, everything in my pockets, which included little notes from Jamie, and he burned it to ash. The only thing he let me keep was Jamie's ring, and only that because it was simple silver, made out of a melted-down house key. So there was nothing. Nothing to show for what happened to me except for scars and Brianna herself.
[ And, as Bree so wonderfully pointed out, trying to tell the truth only made Claire look like a 'bored housewife who fucked another man.' Still, she's able to rally and offer Annabeth a small smile. ]
This entire story is why once happiness presented itself here—even with what I have waiting if we're ever forced to leave—I had to take it. I can't ache for something that might not ever be, or could be in two decades. Not again. It's exactly as you said, I deserve a little peace.
[ Which is easier for her to admit because Annabeth said it first. ]
pls i love it
What an asshole.
[ she indignantly shoves another cookie in her mouth to stew on it, to settle with the smile claire offers at the end of it all in the face of the happiness she's managed to find here. it's a far cry from the more mature advice she might have offered claire in the illusion, but it's the truer annabeth version of support. she nods at the older woman's affirmation that she deserves it. ]
As peaceful as things can be in this place, I guess. There's a certain reprieve it offers, in spite of everything.
[ she once told claire she really appreciated thorne's beds, so she supposes she understands that experience of not taking the good of this place for granted. ]
figured we could probably wrap with your next tag?
Truly, I've waited so long to hear someone else make that exact statement. Thank you, it feels validating in a way I can't explain.
[ She takes a deep breath that feels nice and cleansing and lets it out. ] We'll see how long the peace actually lasts. But I will say that here, I've been less afraid for myself as a woman. That alone is a reprieve from the 18th century.
[ With about half a cup of coffee left, she nods toward the back door. ] Would you like to go look now?
5 years later, yes 🎀