WHO: Claire & Nathan Meadowes-Fenwick. WHAT: A reaction to the hangings. WHEN: A little after the deaths, but before Jamie and Maddie's reappearance on the journals. WHERE: The Walker house. RATING/STATUS: TBD/incomplete. Possible warning for talk about deaths and all the general depressingness that comes with it.
Claire wasn't numb. She felt like maybe she should be. She'd been crying long enough. But it didn't stop. Just when she managed to stop for long enough to catch her breath, there it was all over again. No, she wasn't numb. Instead it was a war between rage and sadness. There was wanting to curl up as tightly as she could and cry until she couldn't. And there was wanting to scratch at everything she could and kick and scream and destroy, as though that could bring her brother back. Her palms and arms were filled with tiny half-moon crescents, because even if pressing her nails harder into her skin wasn't distracting her well enough (how do you distract from a gaping hole in your chest?) at least she could see the patterns of pain across her skin. But there was Nate. She still had Nate and she had to-
It wasn't about being strong. Claire couldn't do that now because JamieJamieJamie. She was the older sister and maybe she should be able to that but she couldn't. They could just squeeze each other tightly instead. And squeeze and squeeze and squeeze until the badness went away. No. It wouldn't go away. Claire knew that. But she could hold her little brother (oh Merlin he was her only brother how could he be her only brother now, how could this happen, how could they let it, how could anyone be so horrible) and they could just- anything. She needed some warmth right now.