WHO: Heather Mason, Claire Bennet (future) WHERE: Winchester & co house WHEN: Friday, March 3; night [backdated] RATING: TDB STATUS: part-log, part-thread; in-progress
The shower had lasted almost thirty minutes, and by the time Heather had gotten out, dried off, and pulled on a pair of sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt, she was very thankful that she'd taken the time out to just pamper herself for a change. Things were hectic in more ways than one, and between worrying about the Alastair situation, trying to deal with the breakup, making some kind of attempt to figure out what was going on with Alessa, dealing with assholes like Gabriel Gray and Ruby on the boards, and being pregnant on top of it? Heather was really sick of stress and frustration and that hot shower actually felt like it had done a world of good. Physically, she wasn't feeling so awful anymore, at least, and that was something.
She still found herself wanting to veer off in the direction of the bedroom she once shared with Sam, and it stung quite a bit every time she realized she had to go the other way in order to get to the place she would be putting her head down at night. This put a small frown on her face as she entered the guest bedroom, which she'd been sharing with Claire for a few days now. The company was nice, though, and Heather was very appreciative of it whenever she was feeling particularly low. She always had someone around to talk to, to distract herself with, and that was definitely needed.
"Hey," she greeted the other girl with a small smile when she entered the room, pushing some wet hair away from her face. It was late, and she thought maybe Claire would've already been asleep, but that wasn't the case.
Though sleep had gotten easier in the weeks since her and Mary's abduction, it still wasn't a sure thing for Claire. She slept less than before, even on a good night, as if unconsciously afraid of having a good night turn bad with too much sleep. Sharing a room with someone had helped a little, as she felt more obligated to at least try to sleep when she was in the room and couldn't just leave the TV, stereo or a lamp to read by on all night. Of course, some nights it meant she just didn't come to bed in the guest room at all, to avoid disturbing Heather, since the other woman needed her sleep. It didn't have to be a house completely full of insomniacs.
Tonight, though, she was in the room – not 'in bed' in the sense of being ready to sleep, but flopped on her stomach on top of the covers. At the sound of footsteps, Claire looked up, pushing aside the book when she saw it was Heather. "Hi." The smile offered in return was small, but genuine. "Feeling better?"
"Not feeling any worse, so I'm gonna take that as a good thing," Heather replied as lightly as possible. She was getting better at hiding the fact that she was still feeling less than perfect on the inside. People didn't need to see it when they had their own issues to deal with.
Moving towards her own bed and sitting down on the edge of it, Heather fell silent for a few moments and considered the other girl for a bit. She knew both Claire and Mary were dealing with their kidnapping even now, and on more than one occasion she had woken up in the middle of the night to find her roommate still awake, still stirring uneasily. Heather never brought it up so as not to intrude on Claire's way of dealing, but as she watched her now, she had to ask.
"How are you doing?"
After a half-moment's deliberation on how to answer, Claire propped her chin on her hand, eyes on Heather.
"I think it's a halfway day. Not awful, not great. It's kind of a process, you know? Steps forward, steps back." It was a pretty honest answer, even if it didn't reveal minute details, because the days between bad and good were often hard to peg, as sometimes they just stayed in that grey area and sometimes they turned into one or the other. It was never steady progress forward, but it was also not bad all the time.
So it was an honest answer without being excessive, and Claire figured that was a good answer for a friend. To be fair, for awhile now, for a number of reasons, she sometimes wasn't sure what to say to Heather, but she kept that feeling close to herself, something she didn't discuss with nearly anyone besides Dean.
"Were you headed to bed now?" she continued, then sat up. "I can go read out in the family room if you want to get to sleep now."