Chapter Text
The late afternoon sun appears in splotches on the yellow walls of the home of Claire Villers. It was a partially cloudy March day allowing only small reprieve from London's drab disposition. Claire was getting ready for her date with her boyfriend of three years – Teddy. Sitting down at the vanity she took her phone and called her dad on video.
'Hi, dad! How you've been doing? Everything all right?' Claire signed with her hands.
Her dad, Vincent, had gone deaf after the accident that took Claire's mother, 'It's been alright, Mrs Anderson next door has been going crazy with her new dog.'
'She got a dog!?' Claire stopped applying concealer, 'She couldn't stand poor old Percy when we had him! And now she's gone and gotten a dog?!'
Vincent Villers laughed his choppy laugh and responded, 'So, what are you getting ready for? Another gig tonight? Please don't tell me it's at the same sketchy place you were complaining about a few days ago! My weak old man heart couldn't take it!'
Claire rolled her eyes, 'You're only 45! What weak heart?!? And no, I don't have a gig tonight, I'm going on a date with Teddy.'
'Oooo!' he teased, 'So it looks like an extra special evening...'
Claire frowned, 'I don't know, it's weird because when he asked me out, he seemed so skittish and strange, not at all like himself.'
'Maybe he'll propose?' her dad rose an eyebrow in interest.
Truthfully, he had conflicting feelings on the topic, much like his daughter. He wanted her to be happy but he remembers how quickly he got married and had a child, he hadn't been ready, but he made himself ready because he had to be. Back then he was on his way to becoming a big time musician, but life took a turn and he had to take care of his family. Vincent knows that he wouldn't change a thing about his choices, but sometimes he did wonder of the alternate world where he became famous. No, all he wanted was for his sweet beloved daughter to do what makes her happy, no matter what it is.
Claire however felt in her heart of hearts that if Teddy were to actually propose, she'd probably say no. They'd been dating for a while, but recently they'd been growing a tad distant. Plus, she had so much she wanted to do before marriage.
'I hope not...I don't think I'd accept.'
Her dad wasn't too shocked and so asked, 'So when and where is the date?'
'It's at seven at The Broach, we used to go there but not much recently...'
'Oh well, it's nearing the time, I'll let you finish getting ready.'
'Alright, thanks dad! See you on Sunday!' Claire smiled at him and they both hung up.
Claire quickly finished her make-up and went to get dressed. She had chosen a nice white calf length dress with bunches of lilacs all over. Choosing simple low-heeled boots and her tan coloured coat, she set out after grabbing the purse with her phone, and a few other necessities.
Having left, Claire hailed a cab for herself. The car took her through the city of London; even after living here for as long as she had, Claire still found beauty in the bustling chaos of this city. She hadn’t lived here forever, no, she was a northerner who moved here at age 20 to pursue a music career. Then Claire met Teddy soon after and they soon began dating. As the cab sped along, Claire gazed out of the window, this life was not what she thought it would be. She, like any musician, had dreams of grandeur, of constant fun and adventure, but so far it had been a lot of struggling for gigs and money and money and gigs. Having nearly let herself drift into melancholy, Claire was thankfully interrupted by the cab stopping and the man declaring they had arrived.
"Thank ye, 'ave a nice evenin’!" she spoke as she exited the cab after having paid the fare.
"Ye're very welcome, luv! ‘ave a nice night yerself!"
Claire entered the nice but casual looking restaurant, gingerly looking around for Teddy. He'd been the one to pick the restaurant and he'd chosen the one that had the most sentimental value to them, as they used to come here during their first year of dating.
She spotted him sitting at a two person table, nervously wringing his hands, "hey, Teds!"
"H-hi, Claire..." he spoke meekly, not meeting her eye.
As she took the seat across from him, she asked "what's up wi' the restaurant choice? We ‘aven’t been ‘ere for ages."
An alarmed look crossed his face, "oh, no, no it's… I jus' thought it’d be nice..."
Teddy was usually a confident, extroverted person, so forgive her if it seemed suspicious how anxious he was being, "Right…anyway, ‘ow's yer day been?"
"Oh me? Nooo," he waved his hand in an exaggerated motion and sipped his drink, "tell me 'ow you've been."
"Quite good I suppose. I talked to me da' before I came here."
"How is 'e doing, by the way?" Teddy was trying his best to steer the conversation away from the burning topic on his mind.
"He's fine. Our neighbours got a dog," she smiled fondly at the thought of her dad.
A round of silence snuck over them, making the boy fidget with the fork on his side. He wasn't ready, he needed more time, but he also wanted to just stop pretending. Teddy sat, not knowing what to do. His eyes were focused on Claire, who was neutrally looking over the menu. He had to say it, he had to.
And there's no better time than now, "Claire!"
She was startled by his high pitched squeal of a voice. It wasn't usually that way.
"What is it?" she put down the menu and gave him her undivided attention.
"Uh...OH! Yeah, right, ummm…” he was stalling.
"Well, get on with it."
"So ummm...where do I begin?"
Claire cocked an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue.
"Remember a few months ago we went to tha' club together?"
She nodded along and he continued, "and ye went dancin' with a few of yer friends, leaving me at the bar..."
"Where's this goin’, Teds?" Claire put her hand on his, in an attempt to ease his nerves that were going out of control.
Teddy drew away from the touch in clear discomfort, "I...I met a girl there. I-I've been seeing her ever since and I thi-think I've fallen for 'er..."
For a few long seconds, that seemed shorter upon retrospect, Claire stayed completely and utterly frozen in shock. Teddy began to grow concerned. Now it was him putting his hand on hers and he squeezed it, to shake her out of her stupor. But Claire didn't budge at all for a while. When she noticed his hand holding hers, Claire immediately retracted it. An alarmed look flashed across Teddy's face.
She sat there not knowing how to respond to something like this. Out of everything that she was expecting to hear, this was honestly the least anticipated of them all.
"Claire...I...I'm sorry, so, so sorry..." Teddy tried to somehow save the quickly spiralling situation, "ye're an amazing girl, really, but I jus'...don't love ye anymore..."
'Ouch! Could he be any blunter?' she asked herself. Claire sat still for a while longer but then she finally snapped out of it and spoke to Teddy.
"You absolute wanker! If ye were fallin’ fer another girl, didn't it occur teh ye to maybe break up with me an’ stop stringin’ me along like some idiot without a clue?" Claire was beginning to fume with anger.
"I..." Teddy stayed on that note for a few seconds.
Claire pinched the bridge of her nose, "I's such an asshole thing to do, ye know tha’ right? Wha's yer excuse fer leading me on then?"
"I don't know! I thought tha', you know, maybe things wouldn't actually work out with 'er and in tha' case I didn' want teh lose ye..." Teddy was meek and little in his seat.
"Ye selfish cunt!" Claire got up from her seat and in a rage she did probably the most dramatic thing she's done in her life.
She took the glass of wine that a waiter had poured just mere moments ago and threw it all at Teddy. It quickly stained his shirt and while the boy was dazed, Claire took her purse and coat and rushed out of the restaurant.
She was speed walking down the pavement in her heels as angry as she could be. A voice kept calling after her to come back and just talk like 'normal people'. Claire gave her pursuer the two finger salute and kept quickly rushing down the street towards god knows where. A waiter shouted in the background for someone to come pay the bill. Well, one thing was clear, it wasn’t gonna be Claire.
Claire held herself together by holding onto her forearms. It was both an effort to stay warm in this early March evening and to keep herself from completely breaking down into a pathetic heap.
Rain had begun to drizzle to add to the drama of the moment. Wind blowing at her back helped to propel her forwards faster than she would normally go, as if the wind were a trying to help her get away from Teddy. She ran right through countless puddles, probably ruining her shoes in the process. Claire continued to hear Teddy's shouts for her to stop running and continued to ignore them valiantly. Running further and further she ended up shaking Teddy off. Claire didn't want to talk to him at all after what he'd revealed.
When her feet started to fall against wood instead of concrete, Claire finally took in where she had taken herself. It was a pier that she had ran to. Thankfully even the Londoners found this weather awful enough to not go outside, so Claire was alone at the pier overlooking the Thames.
She stumbled along the way and made it to the end of it, where she held onto the rickety wood railing as tears finally began to leak from her eyes. The whole time she had held it in and not cried, but at this point the emotions crashed down and so she let herself cry and cry, and cry. Claire didn't take much notice of just how unsafe this pier was. Wooden planks stuck up in some places and others were noticeably very rickety. Where had she even brought herself?
The wind was gaining pace and pushing her around, making her stumble along the old wooden planks. Claire's feet intermingled with one another almost making her trip a few times. Eyes, brimmed with big wet tears, made her a tad disoriented.
A particularly strong and violent gust of wind swept at her, making her stumble on an extremely unsafe area of the pier. Her heavy footfalls broke the wood beneath her sending her tumbling downwards.
Claire fell down quickly into the freezing cold water below. It swallowed her up immediately, drenching her to the bone. Her clothes were soaked and heavy, dragging her down and making it hard to swim to the surface.
Her breath was disappearing quickly and her mouth opened up on instinct to draw in more breath. Water had entered her lungs and she tried desperately to do something as all she could do was thrash around wildly. Spots began to dance before her eyes in what, under more normal circumstances, could've been considered quite psychedelic. It might've even been beautiful, had she not been drowning.
Finally the water got the best of her and Claire sunk down and down, her eyes closing as she stopped struggling. Blackness invaded her vision and the pain soon disappeared, only to be replaced by a lulling sensation, like she was being pulled in every direction, up, down, sideways. It felt slightly like falling.
And then she began to see lights and colours dancing around her like a tornado. The images began to clear up and the first one she saw was of Teddy sitting in his apartment with some quite posh girl. She seemed to be very beautiful, perfectly blond with bright green eyes and an angular face with high cheekbones. Teddy seemed distressed and the girl had a hand on his upper arm, in an attempt to calm him.
Then blinding lights, reminiscent of stage lights, she could feel a deep reverberated sound too loud in her ears. Claire could almost make out a figure in gorgeous glittering and flowy clothing so colourful and vibrant. Next thing she knew there was a door in front of her, it was slowly swinging open with a warm fuzzy glow coming from the other side. Voices and hands and smiles reaching out to embrace her.
The picture changed and morphed into her father. This scene was much clearer. He was sitting on a couch in his home, drinking from a cup and wiping his tears. The man then stood up from his seat and went out of the scene.
Just as her dad left the scene, four figures entered it haphazardly. They came running around and seemingly having fun. These figures again seemed more blurry and out of focus, but somehow Claire recognized them. Or rather, they felt familiar in some strange way, much the same as that the door scene from before did. For a while she could even hear the four figures laughing as they jumped around.
And then they began to fade away as well, filling Claire with a sense of dread and panic. Feeling like being pulled away from all the mysterious scenes, like coming to a halt when driving in a car. She began to feel pain returning to her body and a sense of consciousness invaded her mind. Then, like a brick to the head, she felt herself suddenly laying on the ground. Her head and chest throbbed with an extreme pain and she could vaguely hear waves lapping at the shore.
The sun shined brightly at her eyelids, a contrast to the strange lights and spaces and times before, so it was a bit startling when suddenly a shadow was cast over her. Claire finally opened her eyes, unable to move anything else. It required a lot of effort from her to get them open, but when she did, she was face to face with four people. Her eyes darted to each one, examining them. They seemed to be examining her in return, quite confused obviously.
The realization struck her swiftly, the realization of just who these four guys were. Her head spun madly at this and she was becoming dizzy. This can't be real, this can't be happening. These must be fakes or something. Only impersonators of the real people.
"Oh, fuck, it's you guys..." the words escaped her mouth in a breathy slurred mess.
One of them chuckled and cracked a smile that was soon wiped off by the daunting look that another one shot at him. They kept staring at her for a while longer, finding this weird girl fascinating.
Claire's head finally lulled back onto the warm wet sand. The guys rushed forwards to try and stop her from passing out. Ultimately they were too late in their effort and Claire slipped into unconsciousness yet again, leaving the guys to make a final decision of what to do now.