claire temple (mynightoff) wrote in saveatlantisic, @ 2019-03-11 13:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, *chel, *laura, claire temple, matt murdock |
january 22 / february 15
claire temple ✦ matt murdock
claire wakes from the fear simulation / they talk about the fears that it dredged up low complete |
Consciousness hit her all at once, like a tidal wave, Claire inhaled sharply as her eyes blinked open, revealing the familiar ceiling of the medical floors. Her heart hammered in her chest, hard enough that if she didn’t know better, she might’ve thought it would run right out of her mouth and down the hall. There was a hand pressed against hers, palm to palm, and she didn’t need to look over to know it was Matt. The room felt too big and too bright after where she’d just been and what she’d seen, which didn’t make sense to her at all. Shouldn’t she be glad for the high ceilings? For all the space? Instead, she still felt trapped. She tried to push herself more upright so she could reach to pull the blanket off her legs. “Matt --” Her voice croaked, which was embarrassing as hell. How long had she been out? Sometime during the evening, Matt had laid his cheek on the mattress and allowed his consciousness to drift. Being watchful was his duty, of course. But exhaustion had finally claimed him. He slept lightly with his hand pressed into hers. It was, however, her voice that brought him quickly back to himself. With wide eyes, he listened closely, assuring himself that she really was there and this was not some trick of Atlantis. It was Claire. Whole, conscious, and … confused. “Hey,” he murmured, giving her her hand and let his hand play along the edge of her blanket. “You’ve been out for a couple days. We’re in Medical. You’re safe, Claire.” You’re safe should have been more reassuring than it was, but Claire still felt like she had one foot back in that dreamscape she and Solaire had been in. Her head felt foggy as she tried to sort out what Matt had said. She’d been out for a couple days? It was no surprise that time had moved differently in her own head than in reality, shifting between feeling like only minutes had passed and like it was taking hours for anything to happen. Once she got the blanket off her legs, she reached out for Matt again, her fingers brushing lightly through the hair at his temple. “Have you been here the whole time?” He moved with her, leaning into her touch, turning to let his lips press against the inside of her wrist. “Almost as long as you have. Karen’s been asleep too. Leonardo and Ezio - hell, the whole island - have been worried.” “Mmm.” Claire hummed a little and smiled. “Something tells me you haven’t gotten much sleep. Just a hunch.” She let her hand drop to his shoulder and tugged gently on his shirt. He probably hadn’t showered in days, but Claire didn’t care. She wanted him close. After what she and Solaire had been through -- she wanted to know he was there and alive, she wanted to feel his heartbeat. “Matt --” she started, but her throat went dry for a moment. “I’m sorry I worried you,” she tried instead. He kissed her quickly, letting his lips linger at her brow. “You have nothing to apologize for,” was firm. And of course, he leaned in, letting his arms be a support if she desired it. “You were placed in … whatever that was, Claire. I believed in you. I knew you would come back.” Claire had no idea how he could have known that. Faith? Wishful thinking? She had come back, but if he’d been the one in a coma, Claire wasn’t sure she would’ve been so confident. “It was so --” She kept on trying to describe it, but the words just weren’t there. It was confusing and lonely and dark, so dark. A shiver ran down her spine. She didn’t let go of him, even if she itched to figure out her mind on her own. That wouldn’t help, and she knew it, so she held on. “It was like -- with the Russians, except I knew you wouldn’t be there.” He ached to reconstitute her pain as something else; to, at the very least, cast in in a purposeful light. But he knew these moments of agony. He listened to her, his arms a firm anchor to their shared reality. “How did you wake up?” “I don’t know,” Claire admitted, a frown etched on her face as she tried to remember what had changed, if anything. Somehow the shadows had faded - not because of anything she did, specifically, as far as she could tell - but she’d been caught shortly after that. Time moved differently in her head. She knew she’d been out for a few days, but it hadn’t felt quite that long. She shrugged. “I fought back. We fought back. And then I woke up. I really don’t know how. One minute I’m lashing out at someone with those claws I picked up in China, and the next, I’m here.” “You fought back,” he repeated softly. He wasn’t sure of the purpose or the magic that took her to this place of solitude. But he was thankful to know that she fought. He had a hunch that might have even had something to do with bringing her back. He tucked a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. “I’m proud of you.” Her first reaction was to exhale sharply in a dry sort of near-laugh, like she didn’t believe she’d done anything worth his pride. But it wasn’t his fault that she felt stupid for how afraid she’d been, how helpless, how convinced she’d been that she couldn’t get out. That was all her. Claire chose not to comment on it one way or another. Instead, she glanced behind him towards the door. “I need you to help me get out of here,” she stated, trying to infuse her voice with confidence she didn’t feel just yet. She didn’t want to continue sitting there in a hospital bed, thinking about how lost she’d been. “I want to go home.” She paused. “And I really need a shower.” Matt was absolutely happy to punch his way out of Atlantis if she requested it. He knew that his connection to this place was not just tethered in a fight to save their New York but personified within Claire. He would do whatever she requested. This, however? It was easy. He stood in the chair and gave her room. “If you can stand, we’ll walk. But if you can’t stand, I’ll carry you. Let’s go.” “You’re not carrying me out of here,” Claire insisted, nearly laughing at the idea. It was sweet, but there was no way the doctors would let her go if she couldn’t stand on her own two feet. They probably wouldn’t let her go at all just yet, for that matter. Was it futile to even try to escape? If the person in the bed had been one of her patients instead of herself, she wouldn’t let the patient leave. But Claire swung her legs over the edge of the bed anyway, and she stood up, her feet steady. She reached out to smooth her thumb across his cheek. Matt looked like he needed a good three days’ of rest, too. There was so much she wanted to say: she was glad his was the first face she saw, she loved him, she wasn’t going to leave him by choice, not again. But her chest felt tight, and God, Claire really didn’t want to cry. “... thank you.” He took his coat off a chair and gently draped it around her shoulders before he let his head blow beneath the gentle pressure of her thumb. He’d refused to give in to despair. Now, with her present, he could truly allow himself to breathe again. Atlantis’ eccentricities were often filled with little lessons and he wondered, in the present days, if they would talk about what happened in greater detail. But he could hear her voice and all the fractures within it. Before he spoke, he kissed her forehead. “Let’s go home. We’ll know what to do when we find a shower and some food.” “Okay.” She dropped her hand to his shoulder and then slide it around to the back of his neck. Her other one joined the first shortly after, and she leaned in for a hug. The dream world seemed farther and farther away with Matt right there, real and solid under her fingertips, but Claire knew that feeling wouldn’t last for long. He held her tightly, breathing in and savoring her live and active within his arms. He’d known, somewhere in the midst of the coma, that he would wait for her however long it took. And he held himself from the brink of the darkness that threatened to infect him. Together, then. Together they were quite unbeatable. The remnants of Matt’s suit from the Valentine’s ball still laid on the floor next to the hamper. Their evening had been fruitful and what was more, the following days had been filled with equal parts work and fun. It wasn’t often that Matt deviated from his Spartan and cleanly ways, but he liked that reminder close enough to touch. They, at last, found their way into his pile of dirty clothes. Straightening, he tilted his head and half-turned toward the door, his smile bright. “Good morning, sunshine.” “Sunshine?” Claire scoffed and shook her head. He didn’t see the halo of hair around her head, rumpled from sleep, or the circles under her eyes from a late night of not being able to shut off her brain. The sight of him picking up his clothes made her smile, though. They couldn’t live together officially, but it was nice knowing her space was his, and vice versa. She liked finding him everywhere. It made what they had so much more real. She kissed his cheek when she reached him. “I haven’t had my coffee yet. What are you buttering me up for this time?” “Hmmm … that’s the way I see it.” His hand pressed against her waist as he leaned down, returning her greeting with a kiss to her forehead. “ … well, I made coffee,” he told her with a half-shrug. “So I think you need to put the butter on the other side of the bread.” Claire rolled her eyes, still smiling. “You’d see that no matter what I really look like. It’s sweet, but we both know I’m not a morning person.” She felt as far from sunshine-y as she could get, if she was honest with herself. She reached out, smoothing her hands down his sides before grabbing ahold of his shirt and tugging. “How about we forget the coffee for a bit? I don’t want to get up.” “Oh yeah? I don’t quite think you’re feeling lazy.” He fell back against the pillows gladly, a smile splitting his face with satisfaction as he allowed himself to be handled by her. Reaching up, he laced his arms behind his head and lounged. “Correct me if I’m wrong.” “What do you know?” Claire asked with a huff, and to prove it, she didn’t do anything except tuck herself in next to him, draping an arm across his stomach. While he was right (not that she wanted to admit it now that he’d called her out so obviously), it was nice, too, just having another quiet moment to themselves. She didn’t want to take it for granted. After a moment, and with her face still pressed against his chest, she added, “I had another dream,” she admitted, “based on all that shit from that… whatever they did to us.” There it is. He took in a shallow breath, letting one arm drift from behind his head to settle soothingly at her back. Claire was much like him -- the stoic sort who got on with it. And he didn’t ever intend to push her. Matt was infinitely patient. “Oh yeah?” “Mmhmm.” He couldn’t see it -- but maybe he could tell, she wasn’t sure -- but her brow was furrowed as she tried to sort out what she remembered of it now, and how she felt about it. It was still frustrating, even a few weeks on. She was fine, most of the time, but then something would flare up again at night, always at night, and she was so angry. “And it reminds me how …” She almost laughed. “Dependent I always am. On someone. Someone to save me, someone to always be there.” She’d taken care of so much of her life on her own, but she kept on getting swept up by men, too. “And how helpless we are. They could do it again tomorrow for all I know. Or you could be gone tomorrow. And there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.” He bit his lip, thinking of the words he could say to comfort her. The leaps she’d made in training impressed him. She was getting physically stronger but she was also (mentally) far surpassing him in emotional and spiritual strength. Matt knew his limits and God, if his faith didn’t guard them. He couldn’t do anything about being ‘sent away’ … he couldn’t do anything but cling to her. A sigh, then -- “It’s that deep, dark and unbidden part of you that was given form. It’s what you fear, Claire. It isn’t what I sense when we are together.” Claire pushed herself up and away from him, just slightly, enough so she could study him and his reactions. Every time she felt this sense of anxiety about what the fears had revealed, she felt guilty -- and so incredibly stupid. She should’ve been more sure of herself and her ability to stand on her own two feet by now. What was it about this that made her feel so much more vulnerable? “What do you sense?” “Claire, I …” He tilted his head, listening for her reaction -- any speed in her heartbeat, a bloom of heat from her cheeks or an inhalation of breath -- he wanted to know. When the tableau was still, he spoke. “I sense someone who surrounds herself with strength but doesn’t recognize her own significant strength. I sense someone who downplays her gifts and contributions because she doesn’t see how they are the most essential parts of what holds the very broken world together. I sense someone who desperately wants to believe in something but doesn’t know yet how to believe in herself.” He reached forward, enveloping her nearest hand between his palms. “I want to help you get there.” “You have such a way with words,” Claire commented, using her own as a buffer against how her heart felt to hear him describe her. He wasn’t wrong, and the eeriest part was how much it echoed what Gao had told her about how badly she wanted to be special. At the time, it’d made her angry. She was special, more than Gao knew. Now, it made her sad to know she’d started to lose a piece of the strength she’d used to have. “You help,” she insisted, leaning in to kiss the back of one of his hands. “More than you know. Here’s the thing. I believe in myself. I believe in myself more than I believe in a lot of things. But I’m also very aware of my limitations. I couldn’t hold our world together, Matt. Everything -- it just slipped through my fingers.” She’d tried so hard to hold everything and everyone together, but it kept slipping away. “It’s hard not to think it’s just going to keep happening.” “Neither could I,” he told her gently. “And you know what I learned? It isn’t our job to hold it all together. It’s our job to look at the problem in front of us, solve that, and plow our way through.” A brow arched and he leaned forward, pressing his lips against her temple. “Plow our way through to a little bit of happiness, even.” “Mmm. Wish it was that easy.” How could she solve a problem that was based in something she couldn’t control? She settled back down, tucked in along his side. “I am happy. I want you to know that. I need you to know that. This is -- it’s a good life, if I can get out of my own head about how steep of a cliff we’re living on.” The other shoe had to drop sometime. It always had, and that was what she kept anticipating, that something would go wrong. “I wouldn’t change this.” Perhaps he’d become accustomed to living on cliffs with the bottom ready to fall out at any time. But he knew it wasn’t everyone’s life. He further respected her desire to look for some kind of safe ground. “I know. I know you are. I am too.” He was happier than he’d been in … ever. And he hoped, lying beside her, arms tangled around her waist, she could feel that contentment too. There were things about New York that she missed like someone had ripped a hole in her heart, and Claire suspected nothing about that would change. She’d always miss her mother and the streets she’d grown up on. But she still wouldn’t trade one in for the other. She could handle the bouts of homesickness if it meant she got to have Matt for even a little while. “I believe you,” she admitted. He’d hesitated to say he was happy before. There’d been glimpses, little hints of it underneath all of the muck he’d been swimming through. If they could get through that, surely they could find their way through her fog, too. |