After more than two years in Atlantis, Leonard was used to people coming and going. Some days were heavier than others, but whether people chose to go home or the technically had some kind of malfunction, the come and go was a near constant and sometimes that departure list held names that were all too familiar with him. Uhura. Spock. Jim and Molly, who’d been on it three times. Jemma, after they’d come back from Breckentale and now Sulu. Leonard wasn’t as close to Sulu as he was to Jim, but it still hurt to see the name of a crewmate on those lists.
With his shift technically over, Leonard pulled out a bottle of whiskey he kept in his drawer for these occasions and a glass. He’d just filled it when Claire walked into his office and after offering her a smile that was only slightly awkward after what they’d shared in Breckentale, he pulled out a second glass and gestured for her to join him.
Claire didn’t even bother knocking, her left hand was behind her back as she came in nodding to the glass as she took a seat revealing the bottle of the same brand of whisky he had. It was weird trying to figure out how to act around him. There was part of her that had the instinct to want to kiss him but that was awkward.
“I’d ask you how you are but I know the answer to that,” Claire said with a small smile. “So, is it a triple kind of day?”
Leonard couldn’t help but smile when he took note of the bottle in Claire’s hand. She knew his tastes, that was for damn sure, and he appreciated the gesture. Figuring out how they were supposed to act around one another after Breckentale wasn’t easy, but he pushed aside any awkwardness to nod. “Yeah, it is,” he decided, pouring a glass out of his bottle for each of them.
Setting the bottle down on his desk Claire watched him carefully, movements, eye contact, or not, the little things. Taking the glass when it was poured she held it up. "To friends, we'll miss and see again someday." It was about the only thing she could come up with. "Or, Well Fuck Atlantis." She added with a small smirk.
“I’ll drink to that,” Leonard agreed, raising his glass to clink it against hers. “To friends, we’ll miss and see again someday,” he echoed. Some of them, at least, he knew he’d see one day when this fight was over and they went home. There were a few friends lost that he didn’t have quite the same assurances about, but his crewmates, at least, he knew he would see again.
Claire nodded with a soft smile as she took a sip of her whisky after the glasses clinked. She looked down for a moment before looking back up at him. “This is exactly the wrong timing,” she tilted her head. “Or exactly the right time.” She paused with a small blush. “How do you feel about being my date to this dance coming up?”
He hadn’t been expecting the question and Leonard looked at her with surprise for a moment, but then he couldn’t help a smile. “I’d love to,” he answered. He didn’t always love big social events, but attending with Claire sounded like it could be fun.
Claire laughed softly at his surprise and smiled with his answer. “Good, because I wouldn't want to have to go with a stranger.” She was trying to keep it light, nothing with pressure or thoughts past it could be fun. “But don’t wear a pale blue suit, I’m not even sure you could pull it off.”
“You don’t think I can pull it off? That sounds almost like a challenge,” he teased, trying to keep it light, too. He hadn’t even given himself to think about any lingering feelings or whether some of those feelings had been there before Breckentale. Claire was a friend, someone who’d been in Atlantis a long time and who he felt comfortable with, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to complicate that, especially given the way people he cared about in Atlantis tended to vanish.
“I don’t think you have the legs for it,” she challenged with a shrug. “They aren’t sleek enough.” She teased with a shrug. “Besides, the pale blue might just make you stand out a little bit too much.”
“I might just do it now, just to prove you wrong.” If Claire’s goal had been to distract him from his melancholy for the moment, it was working. He was caught up in the teasing banter rather than thinking about the constant come and go of Atlantis.
“You think you’ll prove me wrong? Really?” Claire teased in a challenging sort of way. “Because I don’t think you’ll win.” She looked down with a smile.
“You really think so, huh?” he teased back. He didn’t know what he’d actually end up wearing to this thing, but that didn’t stop him from responding to the apparent challenge or continuing this conversation. “I think you’re going to be surprised when I do.”
“I know so,” Claire leaned forward trying to hold onto a serious look but the threat of a smile was playing on the edge of her lips. “We’ll have to see if you go through with it.” She added leaning back again as her mind slipped to thoughts she shouldn’t have. Shaking the thoughts away she looked back over to him.
“Yeah, we will.” Looking at her with a smile, Leonard took a sip of his drink. “I’m glad you came by,” he admitted. When he’d seen the alert about Sulu, he thought he wanted to be alone, but now that he was sitting here with Claire, he decided that what he actually needed was the right kind of company.