Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They meet in the library, on the third day of med school.

It’s late in the evening on Friday when Claire finally manages to head there, making good use of the first quiet moments she can find after the hurried frenzy of the first few days, and she stops dead in her tracks when she takes in the gigantic room she ends up in. She expected it to be big, sure, but not… this big.

She shakes herself out of it quickly, though, when she remembers that she has less than an hour left before it closes. She needs to find a few key books to take home with her for the weekend; she intends to read up on two major topics the teachers already put a stress on so she can ahead of her classes as much as she can, before her mom inevitably forces her to throw all her studying plans away by forgetting to take her meds and showing up at her door in the middle of the night after a series of terrible decisions – which Claire is ninety-nine percent sure will happen.

The library is almost empty by now, most of the students having left as soon as the classes ended. That’s why Claire doesn’t really pay attention to where she’s going, more focused on the titles of the books in front of her as she browses several different rows and picks up some than on where her steps are taking her, and of course, she ends up bumping into someone as she rounds a corner. It surprises her enough that two of the books she’s holding slip out of her grasp, and she bends down to retrieve them out of pure reflex before she’s even thought of glancing up to see the person she just collided with.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going, and I—” she starts to say apologetically, grabbing her books from the floor as well as a third one that must belong to whoever she almost face-planted into, but she’s cut off almost immediately by a rather unfriendly female voice.

“Yes, I noticed. You made that quite obvious, actually.”

Blinking in surprise at the clipped tone, Claire gets back up and finally comes face to face with another student about her age, holding her hand out expectantly to get her book back. They stare at each other in silence for a few seconds as Claire keeps it close to her chest with the rest of the pile she gathered, neither of them moving while Claire processes what is happening, until the young woman narrows her eyes and huffs with annoyance.

“My book, if you don’t mind”, she says slowly, the hint of condescension impossible to miss. “I don’t have all day. In case you didn’t know, the library closes in less than half an hour now.” She cranes her neck to the side to get a better look at the covers of the books Claire picked for herself, and adds: “Actually, I was looking for two of these as well; so if you wanted to hand them over too, that’d be a much better way to apologize than words.”

Claire lets out an incredulous laugh, as instantaneous and impossible to hold back as it is short. “Wow, you really do have some nerve”, she retorts. “Especially for someone who’s only been here for a few days – because if you’re searching for the same books as me, I’m guessing you’re a first year student too. And yet you already want to act as if you own the place!”

“First year student indeed”, the young woman confirms, undeterred, “and not here to make either small talk or friends. My. Book. Please.”

Claire finally holds it out to her wordlessly, all desire to apologize gone from her thoughts, and pointedly ignores two things when the young woman whose name she doesn’t even know takes it from her hand and their fingers brush: one, the way said young woman quickly retracts her own hand as if she had been burned as soon as the book is securely in her grasp, and two, the electric current that runs up Claire’s arm for some reason pretty much at the same time. She doesn’t dwell on either, decides she doesn’t care, and walks away from the rude stranger without another word.

She has other, much bigger fish to fry.

Claire doesn’t hear her alarm right away on Monday. She spent so much time studying during the weekend that she fell asleep on her book the previous night, exhausted, and the annoying repetitive ringing that fills her apartment a few hours later takes a while to be processed by her brain. Quite a while, even. Long enough that when Claire finally bolts upwards, she already knows she won’t catch her usual bus no matter how much she hurries to get ready – and she misses it, indeed. So she takes the next one, more than ten minutes later, and walks so fast she nearly jogs to cross the campus once she finally gets there. In the end, she slips into the amphitheater with less than two minutes to spare before the first lecture of the day.

The room is packed, as she expected it would be, and the last few seats available are all – unsurprisingly – in the first row. It doesn’t bother Claire; she’d rather hear everything than mess around with her fellow students like she knows many others do. She doesn’t waste much time looking around the room, just dumps her bag at the foot of the empty seat the closest from the door she just walked in from.

“Hi”, she says, smiling to the guy next to her. “Do you mind if I sit here, or were you saving it for someone else?”

“Hello”, he answers, not looking up from the textbook on the table in front of him. “You can sit here if you want.”

“Thanks”, she whispers, still a bit out of breath from hurrying so much as she slides onto the folding seat. “I’m Claire, by the way.”

“Shaun”, he introduces himself in return, but he still makes no move to look at her.

Although surprised by his behavior, Claire doesn’t let it show. She figures there has to be a good enough reason why he’s acting this way; she doesn’t have much time to wonder what that reason might be, though, because Pr Melendez walks into the amphitheater right on time and she focuses solely on what he’s saying from that point on.

She learns four things over the course of the next two hours, as their first class with him turns out to be more of an oral test of their pre-existing knowledge than a lecture per se. One, Shaun appears to know at least half of the syllabus already. Two, Pr Melendez really doesn’t like him for some reason, considering his behavior any time he’s forced to let him answer a question because no one else has the answer. Three, the rude student from the library on Friday is in this class as well. Four, said rude student knows almost as much as Shaun – even more than Claire herself, despite how many hours she spent with her head buried in books borrowed from the public library during the summer holidays before med school started. She’s impressed, even though she refuses to admit it because she’s still not over how their first encounter went.

Once the two hours come to an end and everyone packs their stuff into their bags again, Claire jokingly asks Shaun: “Are you sure you even need to attend this class? You seem to know everything already!”

“I am required to take it as a first-year student”, is the very serious answer she gets.

“I know, but it sucks. I think you’ll get bored quickly”, she comments, stating the obvious and feeling rather sad for him. “Not to mention that Pr Melendez doesn’t seem to like you very much.”

“He doesn’t”, Shaun confirms, his voice still emotionless. “He didn’t want the school to let me attend any classes in the first place. He thinks I don’t belong here.”

That stuns Claire. “What? Why?!”

“I have autism.”

Well, that explains the repeated lack of eye contact. It absolutely does not, however, explain why med school would not be a good place for Shaun. “So?!” is all she manages to reply at first. “You’re his best student from this class at the moment. Of course you belong here!”

There’s a pause in the conversation as Shaun doesn’t answer, focusing instead on meticulously closing his bag, and he only speaks again after looking at the watch on his wrist. “I need to go to the next lecture on my schedule”, he simply says. Before Claire has time to add anything else, he turns her back to her and heads out of the room.

With her thoughts going a mile an hour, she grabs her bag and goes to her next lecture as well.

It turns out that she has a lot of classes in common with Shaun. It’s not surprising; they both dream of becoming surgeons and thus made similar choices when they signed up to the school, although the wide range of options available as soon as their first year there means there are still a few they don’t share. Claire is happy about how similar their schedules are – she likes him, even if it takes some time to get used to the unusual way he communicates. She is less happy about the fact that the rude blonde white girl whose name she still doesn’t know (and doesn’t care about, she reminds herself) is in most of her classes as well. She didn’t notice it during the first half week, but she definitely does notice it now that miss know-it-all is a noticeable face in a sea of students Claire has never interacted with.

It’s fine, though. They stay out of each other’s way, they pretend they don’t even see each other, and over two weeks go by like that without them exchanging a single word. Still, Claire has a feeling both she and Shaun are running on that girl’s nerves, since she appears to need to be the best at everything all the time and so far they’re the only two other students giving her a run for her money.

(If Claire works hard, it’s so she can make her dream come true. If miss know-it-all works hard, it seems to be to prove to the entire world that she’s better than everyone else. Which is not a mindset that Claire appreciates at all.)

The unspoken rule of mutual radio silence gets broken during lunch break on a Wednesday, albeit not intentionally.

The cafeteria is crowded that day for some reason, but Claire and Shaun are still lucky enough to find a table with four seats that gets vacated right when they need it. They sit next to each other as usual so they can put the chapter of the book they want to discuss between them, and then proceed to do just that while still shoving food into their mouth every so often.

About halfway through their lunch, a voice behind them asks: “Is this seat taken?”

Claire doesn’t need to turn around to know who the voice belongs to, since it’s becoming increasingly familiar to her, but she does so anyway.

“Oh. It’s you”, miss know-it-all adds with a frown when she realizes who she just asked the question to.

“What’s your problem with me exactly?” Claire snaps. “I bumped into you, I apologized, it’s been over two weeks, get over it!”

“I don’t have a problem with you”, is the retort she gets. “I was just surprised.”

Claire scoffs. “Sure.”

“She’s probably telling the truth, you know; don’t take it personally, she’s just that friendly with everyone. I’m speaking from experience”, a sarcastic male voice cuts in, which Claire identifies as belonging to another first-year student walking up to them. She recognizes him easily, simply because they share quite a few classes as well and he’s noticeably older than pretty much everyone else. “I’m Alex. Alex Park”, he introduces himself, offering his hand to Claire who shakes it.

“Claire Browne.”

“Nice to meet you”, Alex says before extending his hand to Shaun this time, who looks at it but makes no move to shake it. Alex pulls it back, a bit self-conscious, and asks instead: “And you are?”

“I’m Shaun. Murphy. Why are you in med school in your thirties?”

Alex laughs. “You’re direct, I like that. I’m a former cop in the middle of a career swerve.”

“And I’m Morgan Reznick, in case anybody cares”, the latter interjects as she sits down uninvited in front of Shaun. “Starting med school after spending so long in another job is an interesting choice. It certainly doesn’t put the odds in your favor.”

“Not everyone makes it their life’s mission to be at the top in every class”, Alex points out, rolling his eyes and sitting down next to her. “For most of us, making to the end of med school is a good enough goal.”

“One less person whose ambitions I have to worry about. Good to know”, Morgan replies rather contemptuously before turning to face Claire and Shaun. “I guess my biggest competition will keep being you two”, she continues.

It’s Claire’s turn to roll her eyes. “You’re the only one who sees classes as a competition rather than as an opportunity to learn.”

“You know, this is even more disappointing to hear from someone who actually has the potential to be great.”

“I’ll do my best to not feel offended by that remark”, Alex comments dryly. “See why I said she’s like that with everyone?” he asks Claire.

She nods, appalled. “Yeah. If anything, that makes her even less likeable.”

“She is right there”, Morgan reminds them. “And she wants to become a surgeon, not win a popularity contest.”

“I want to become a surgeon too”, Shaun says.

Morgan smiles at him, in a falsely sweet and actually patronizing way that makes Claire cringe. “Good luck with that.”

“Oh, wow. You really are something else”, Claire hisses through gritted teeth.

“No, I’m just being realistic. Pr Melendez won’t let that happen, no matter what his grades look like.”

“I want to be a surgeon”, Shaun repeats, more slowly and louder.

“Yes, well, we don’t always get what we want in life”, Morgan notes dismissively.

“You should leave”, Claire says coldly. “I don’t recall telling you you could sit here in the first place, and I have very little patience for intolerance.”

The surprise that paints itself on Morgan’s face at this assessment is genuine. “No, I think you misunderstood me. I believe everyone should be judged on their own merits, not on how many people are prejudiced against them, but I’m also realistic. The world doesn’t hand out opportunities to people just because they’ve earned them in theory.”

“You think I don’t know that?!” Claire exclaims, incensed.

“Then you know exactly what I mean”, Morgan continues. “Just because he wants to be a surgeon and is smart enough to earn his chance doesn’t mean he’ll even get to try. Don’t get me wrong – that’ll mean less competition for me once we get there and I’m happy about that, but it doesn’t mean I think it’s fair.”

“That’s really twisted; I hope you’re aware of that at least”, Claire replies, incredulous. “Do you even know what empathy is?!”

“Yes. An obstacle for success.”

“I— Wow.” Claire shakes her head. “No. I don’t even have words right now.”

“O-kay”, Alex cuts in, wide-eyed and hands up in surrender. “How about you both take a deep breath and think about eating rather than fighting?”

His words break the bubble that Claire feels had isolated her and Morgan from the rest of the world about five minutes ago, and she immediately turns to looks at Shaun who is curling up in his seat out of sheer discomfort.

“I’m sorry”, she apologizes quietly, in what she hopes is a soothing voice. “I forgot how overwhelming loud noises are for you. It’s okay, we’re done shouting now.”

Shaun curls and uncurls his fists under the table a few times before reaching out for the book still open between them, and clumsily closes it with somewhat shaky hands before putting it carefully into his bag. “I have to go.”

“Shaun, wait— Shit”, Claire mutters when he goes without acknowledging them any further.

“Someone please catch the old guy up to date”, Alex pleads, confused. “What just happened?”

“Shaun has autism”, Morgan explains.

“And it was not your place to disclose that”, Claire retorts, breathing out angrily.

“Why?” Morgan pushes. “Do you think it was yours?”

“No, I think it should have been Shaun’s choice to— Wait, how did you even know?” Claire asks, suddenly realizing that neither she nor Shaun told her about his autism.

“It’s not so hard to guess if you know what to look for”, Morgan answers almost scornfully. “Which, if you’re asking this, I suppose you didn’t.”

“Okay, you know what?! That’s it. Keep your snide remarks to yourself. I’m done with you.”

“I— Why do you make a big deal out of everything I say?!”

“Because it is a big deal! Every time! Have you even heard your tone?!”

“Oh, yeah, right – or you just have a problem with me!”

“And we’ve come full circle”, Alex sighs, rolling his eyes at Morgan. “When I came up to this table, Claire was accusing you of having a problem with her, and now, you’re accusing her of having a problem with you. Sounds like you both have a problem with each other, if you ask me.”

“Oh, no, I don’t have a problem with her; I hardly know her. I have a problem with her behavior”, Claire rectifies.

“Great! At least we’re on the same page.”

“And I’m starting to think Shaun had the right idea”, Alex mutters. “I’d rather go finish my lunch outside. Shout at each other all you want while it’s just the two of you.”

Claire shrugs. “I have nothing more to say to her.”

“Good! Me neither”, Morgan agrees.

“See?” Alex says as he goes up with his tray in his hands. “You managed to be of the same opinion twice in a row, even if it’s just about how much you don’t like each other. Miracles do happen!”

They both glare at his back while he walks away, and finish their lunch in complete silence.

Things become weird after that. Not because they start to develop a rivalry that is bordering on unhealthy from that day on – although that may be a tiny part of it as well –, but because Morgan doesn’t seem to know how to leave people alone. As evidenced by their lunch break the following day.

“Are you kidding me?!” Claire hisses when Morgan sits down in front of her in the cafeteria.

Unbothered, Morgan grabs her fork and begins to eat.

“Listen, it’s simple: there are no tables for two, which means that you and Shaun have at least two available seats by default, and it just so happens that I need somewhere I can sit every day. The conclusion draws itself.”

“I don’t want you here”, Claire retorts, careful to keep her voice down this time so they don’t end up upsetting Shaun once more.

“Yeah, well, tough luck.”

“You managed just fine until yesterday.”

“And had to find an empty chair at a different table with different people every day, which takes time that I’d rather spend revising. Besides, it’s tiring to only hear frivolous conversations at a table; at least you two should be interesting. Somewhat.”

Claire glares at her. “You really do have a knack for compliments.”

“I know! It’s one of my specialties”, Morgan replies with a big bright smile and perfectly timed irony, and Claire would be lying if she said it didn’t almost – almost – make her lips quirk up as well.

Alex chooses this exact moment to arrive, his timing picture perfect.

“Huh. I must say, I did not expect to see the three of you together again after the disaster that was yesterday”, he comments, surprised. “Can I sit here today too?”

“See? At least someone here has manners”, Claire points out to Morgan. “And yes, of course you can. Every day, even, if you want to.”

“Great, thanks! No shouting today yet?” Alex jokingly asks, sitting down in front of Shaun.

“Oh, they won’t be any”, Claire assures him. “I’ve elected to ignore people who eat their lunch at our table uninvited from now on.”

“Right. This should be fun”, Alex sighs.

That’s how they end up sharing a table for four almost every day at lunch after that, and it’s weird.

Weird because Claire spends every class they share competing with Morgan now, because Morgan all but provokes her repeatedly and Claire refuses to back down even just once. She’s never been one to compete obsessively with others, preferring to keep getting good grades and bettering herself as her goals, but Morgan’s attitude brings out a side of her she didn’t even know existed.

Weird because Alex and Morgan end up talking a lot during lunch break, and Claire can’t help but listen in even though she keeps stubbornly refusing to talk to Morgan then.

Weird because Morgan infuriates Claire in a myriad of ways, yet Claire finds herself curious somehow. Curious to know who’s really hiding under the smartass exterior, because she can catch a glimpse of someone else poking through sometimes; curious to know why Morgan starts whenever a door closes a little too loudly; curious to know, too, how it’s possible that someone riles her up so much when no one ever did before in her life.

(With the notable exception of her mom. But that’s a completely different story and situation.)

Things stay weird for a little while, and then they become worse at the end of their first month in med school.

Pr Melendez’ announcement starts innocently enough. He informs them that a group project will count for half the grade in his course for this semester, which is not particularly uncommon in itself, but then he adds that he’ll choose the pairs of students himself – based on which partnerships he thinks will have been the most beneficial for everyone by the end of the project.

That’s when Claire begins to think that this might not go as well as she originally planned. Because if there’s one thing she’s instantly sure of, it’s that he’ll never pair her with Shaun. Not when he has a golden opportunity to try to prove that Shaun doesn’t belong in this class by pairing him up with someone who won’t know how to interact with him and won’t care to figure it out.

She’s so worried about Shaun that she doesn’t really spare a thought for her own situation; she doesn’t quite know anyone else in their class, sure, but she can adapt easily. She won’t be the one who’ll likely end up facing a gigantic problem.

At least, that’s what she assumes by default before she hears her name being called. As the person who’s getting partnered up with Morgan fucking Reznick.

She’s so stunned that she doesn’t react beyond staring at Pr Melendez in disbelief, but she does hear Morgan’s shocked “what?!” over the background noise of the students in the amphitheater.

She couldn’t have said it better.

And she spends the rest of the hour in somewhat of a daze; at least until the end of the class, when, without consulting each other at all, she and Morgan both jump out of their seat and rush to the front to talk to Pr Melendez at the same time. Except he raises a hand to stop them before they’ve even gotten a word out, and looks at them sternly in turn.

“Whatever you have to say, I won’t hear it. My decision is final”, he assures them. “You two are among the most brilliant minds in this room. Learn to work together. End of story.”

He leaves them there, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, and Claire groans audibly as soon as he’s out of sight. “Wonderful. Just what I needed.”

“You and me both”, Morgan mutters before going back to gather her things, somewhere between pissed off and defeated.

For once, at least, they agree on something again.

When she gets back to her place that day, Claire is sure of only one thing.

This project will be one hell of a ride.

Chapter Text

Lunch break that day is fun. Claire and Morgan spend the first ten minutes doing nothing but glaring at each other every time their eyes leave their food, and Alex – who isn’t attending Pr Melendez’ class – just has to ask at some point.

“Okay, has there been a declaration of war that I haven’t been made aware of since yesterday, or have you both just gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?”

“They have to do a project together”, Shaun explains before Claire has time to retort anything. He shrugs and adds: “Pr Melendez wants them to learn to work with each other.”

Alex lets out a low whistle and coughs to hide the laughter bubbling up his throat, though with less success than he was aiming for. “Oh, this is going to be interesting.”

“Shut up”, Claire and Morgan snap back at him at the same time.

This time, Alex fully loses it. “This is the greatest thing to happen to me since the beginning of the year. I’m going to have the time of my life watching you two attempt to be civil with each other.”

“Do I need to remind you that I have a knife in my hand and I know how to use it?” Morgan threatens him, though it leaves Alex completely unbothered.

“What part of this is funny exactly?” Claire huffs.

“I don’t understand either”, Shaun admits.

“Oh, believe me – as someone who will watch the consequences of Pr Melendez’ decision unfold as an outsider, there’s no part of this news that isn’t funny. Just try not to murder each other, alright?”

Claire glares at him even harder than before. “I make no promises.”

“Me neither”, Morgan grouches.

Alex dissolves into laughter again.

“I was serious about the knife”, Morgan insists.

“Okay, okay, fine, I’m leaving you two alone with this. For today”, Alex surrenders. “So, Shaun, you’re in this class too, right? Who did you get paired up with?”

“I don’t know him”, Shaun answers. “His name is Jared.”

“Kalu? He’s in a few classes with me”, Alex says. “Nice guy. You should be fine.”

Shaun nods without looking up from the textbook opened next to his tray. “Okay.”

“Good”, Claire sighs with relief. “I was worried Pr Melendez would try to pair you up with a total douchebag just out of pure spite.”

“At least one of us is lucky”, Morgan mutters under her breath.

Claire glares at her for the umpteenth time, but in all fairness she actually does think the exact same thing – she just doesn’t say it out loud.

“Alright, since we’ll have to do this whether we like it or not: ground rules”, she declares through gritted teeth. “One, we both get the same amount of control over the project.”

“Like I’d let you do most of the work”, Morgan scoffs.

“Not what I was worried about, rather the opposite”, Claire shoots back immediately. “You are not making this your own while I tag along. Not gonna happen, is that clear?”

Morgan waves a hand dismissively. “Fine, fine, whatever you say.”

“Swear it.”

“Are you serious right now?”

“Very serious. You’re not bullshitting your way out of this.”

“Fine! I swear I’ll deal with you a reasonable amount. Happy?”

“As long as I define ‘reasonable amount’, yes.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have any popcorn lying around, by any chance?” Alex mocks-whispers to Shaun.

Claire kicks his leg under the table without a warning, causing him to yelp due to a mix of pain and surprise. (She might have hit him harder than she intended to.)

“Ow! Have you ever heard about restraint?” he complains, rubbing his leg with a wounded expression.

“Yeah, have you ever heard about silence?” she retorts, smiling at him in a way that rings as false as she means it to.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m with her”, Morgan concurs. “Do that again and I’ll be the one kicking you this time. And I won’t be quite as nice about it as Saint Claire with overflowing empathy here.”

“What did you just call me?”

“Nothing that isn’t true!”

“Volume”, Alex warns them as they begin to raise their voices and Shaun starts to fidget in front of him.

Claire calms down instantly. “Thanks”, she says quietly, then turns back to Morgan. “So, second ground rule: I don’t care where we’re working on this project, but my apartment is off limits.”

“Good! Mine is as well. Anything else you’d like to add?” Morgan enquires, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Claire thinks about it for a second. “For the time being, no. We’ll see as we go, I guess.” And then, even though it kills her to have to ask such a question, she adds: “Do you have something planned tonight or can we meet somewhere to start brainstorming a good topic for our project?”

“Tonight is fine. Library?”

“That seems like the best place to start, yeah.”

That’s how they end up back together where they first met, except in a wholly different context this time; and it goes… well, pretty much exactly as Claire expected it would.

In short: not great, once again.

It starts out decently enough. They sit down in front of each other, pull up a sheet of paper each, and begin throwing ideas around. Most of them, they dismiss immediately, sure that Pr Melendez will deem them too easy or obvious to use as their topic – he warned them that anything with readily accessible documentation and no deep research necessary would be denied on the spot. And since he considers them two of the most brilliant minds in his class, they have no doubt he’ll be especially strict with their pairing.

They write down anything that seems promising enough to dig deeper into it, occasionally getting up to go find a book to help them brainstorm better, and by the end of the first half hour of work, they end up with a list of fourteen vaguely outlined concepts that they want to revisit.

It surprises Claire, how easy it is to bounce ideas off Morgan. Their thoughts seem to follow the same paths and patterns, giving weight to Pr Melendez’ opinion that they could do great work together (… if Morgan wasn’t so infuriating ninety-five percent of the time, that is…). Overall, they’re off to a much better start than Claire was expecting.

And then the atmosphere starts slowly deteriorating, until it reaches a breaking point.

“First step: done”, Morgan announces, putting her pen down and reading the list on her sheet of paper again while Claire rearranges the books on the table between them. “Good thing I really love biochemistry, it helps make this bearable.”

Claire chooses to ignore the not-so-complimentary remark in favor of reading the same list that she wrote down on her own sheet of paper as well. Things have been decent enough so far, and she’s willing to overlook some stuff if it means being done more quickly for the day.

“Can you pass me the book on glycolysis that you’ve been hogging for the last ten minutes?” she asks instead, intent on checking the chemical formula of a few molecules that she doesn’t know by heart.

“I haven’t been hogging anything”, Morgan replies, rolling her eyes.

“Yes, you have.” Claire sighs, already tired of the argument she can sense incoming, then mumbles: “You’ve been miraculously playing nice for half an hour, can’t you at least keep it up until we’re done for today?”

“I ’ve been playing nice?” Morgan says, incredulous.

Claire rubs a hand over her eyes. “Okay, never mind, forget I said anything; I’d like to get some more work done until you start being, well, you again. Just give me the damn book.”

Morgan glares at her, which seems to be their default way of communication ever since they met, but does as she’s been asked this time.

“Thank you”, Claire says pointedly.

They begin trading books back and forth in near silence after that, doing some research on their own at this point, and the lack of further arguing would be a blessing if Claire couldn’t also help but notice how much care Morgan puts into making sure their fingers never touch again the way they did the first time they met.

It irks her. It irks her because it’s far from the first time in her life she’s had to deal with a white girl doing just that, and she really thought she was done having to deal with this kind of behavior after moving to a big city and going to freaking university. So after a few times too many, she can’t help but call Morgan out on it.

“I don’t quite know what you’ve been taught growing up, but Blackness isn’t contagious”, she snaps.

Morgan looks at her as if she’s grown a second head. “Yeah, no kidding. Where is this even coming from?!”

Claire stares her down, past annoyed at this point. “You doing your damned best to make sure my fingers aren’t coming closer than five inches near your hand for the past fifteen minutes.”

“That’s not—” Morgan cuts herself off and huffs, breaking eye contact with Claire and looking away as if to gather her thoughts – or come up with a lie, Claire isn’t quite sure. “I don’t have a problem touching you because you’re Black. If anything, I’d just have a problem touching you because I can’t exactly stand you, but it just so happens I don’t like touching people at all and you caught me by surprise the first time we met. Happy?”

The iciness of Morgan’s voice takes Claire by surprise. “I’m not sure why knowing this would make me happy”, she says slowly, “but yeah, I won’t lie, I much prefer to know.”

“Well, now you do”, Morgan continues, still on the same worked-up tone. “Can we go back to our project or do you have another ridiculous assumption you’d like to make about me?”

“If you were in my shoes, it’d have been the first thing you’d have thought about too, unfortunately”, Claire retorts. “Just from experience. Anyway – I keep thinking that something related to the human metabolism is our best chance at finding a topic that Pr Melendez will agree to.”

“Oh? And why is that?” Morgan asks, her voice challenging and filled with irony in a way that makes Claire want to throw her pencil at her.

“One, genetics isn’t my favorite subject – much less molecular genetics – and it doesn’t seem to be yours as well from what I gathered; two, I can’t seem to find anything that hasn’t been extensively discussed in protein science already”, Claire replies, trying to keep her calm as much as she can. “Hence, focusing on metabolism.”

“Because it did not occur to you to find a topic that intersects with several of the sub-categories of biochemistry, apparently”, Morgan pushes, her voice still dripping with irony and even with a bit of disdain now.

“No, I did consider—”

Too caught up in their argument, they don’t notice their voices going from hushed to raised or see the person walking towards them until a pissed-off student stops right next to their table.

“In case you didn’t notice, this is a library”, he hisses at them. “Keep your voices down or go continue your petty fight somewhere else!”

Startled, Claire looks at him then back at Morgan; she wonders if they’re going to be in any way productive at this point considering how tense they have both become, and comes to the immediate conclusion that there’s very little chance it’ll happen.

“I’m really sorry”, she apologizes to the guy, “I lost track of where I was. You’re right, we shouldn’t be in a library right now. We’ll leave.”

“Excuse me?!” Morgan exclaims, astounded. “Since when do you think you can make decisions for me?!”

“Oh, I don’t”, Claire replies. “I should have phrased that better: I’m leaving, since I have much better things to do than argue with you while we don’t get anything done, and you do whatever the hell you feel like doing. Okay? Good. Also, try to lose the attitude by tomorrow, I promise you everyone would appreciate it.”

She gathers the three books she wants to take home with her in two swift gestures, glares one last time at Morgan, and goes to the counter to check them out.

She hopes the bus ride back home will be long enough to calm her down to a reasonable amount of annoyance and anger.

When Claire and Shaun arrive at their usual table at lunch the next day, both Morgan and Alex are already there.

“Good to see that you’re both still alive!” Alex teases them, grinning almost from ear to ear and leaning away when Morgan tries to hit him in the shoulder with her fist.

“Don’t make me put my self-defense classes to good use”, she warns him, but he’s so used to her threats after a month of knowing her that he doesn’t pay much attention to them anymore.

“Alive, yes, in a good mood, not really”, Claire mutters.

“I don’t understand why you dislike each other so much”, Shaun chimes in.

“I don’t get it either”, Alex replies, “but I’ve accepted it as the real-life version of an axiom by now. Can’t be explained, can’t be proven, but fundamental.”

“And highly entertaining for you, yes, we know, save us the speech”, Claire sighs.

“So… Did you get any work done?”

“You look like a kid who’s about to be handed a present”, Claire points out, shaking her head.

Morgan, at least, actually does answer the question… in a way. “She bailed on me.”

“I did not bail on you”, Claire rectifies, “I was smart enough to know when to walk away. We weren’t getting any work done anymore, and I think we were stopping the people around us from getting any work done as well at this point.”

Alex snorts and has to bite the inside of his lips to keep from grinning again. “Did you get kicked out?”

“No, just asked to leave by a pissed-off student, which was more than fair”, Claire says. “We got a little, uh, carried away.”

“You should not be working in a library if you spend your time arguing”, Shaun wisely notes.

“Yeah, well, we don’t really have a choice”, Claire grumbles. “But I’ll behave if she does.”

Morgan scoffs, indignant. “You started it!!”

“I had a good reason to!”

Alex looks at them in turn. “Do I want to know?”

“No”, Morgan and Claire answer in unison.

“Okay; at least you’re on the same page here… Too bad for me.”

“Anyway”, Claire enunciates slowly, “I did some more work on my own last night and I think I found a good topic, but I already know you’re going to say it sucks just because I suggested it, so I don’t even know why I bothered.”

Morgan leans forward, then puts her elbows on the table and rests her chin in her hands. “Hmm. Try me.”

“You two will be my witnesses on this”, Morgan informs Alex and Shaun. “So… I was thinking we could try to analyze the importance of hydroxyl groups to build quite a number of essential molecules in the human cells, from pretty much everywhere in the metabolism to the synthesis of proteins – and I’m not just talking about hydrogen bonds, but also about the chemical importance of these groups in such processes. It’s a rather specific topic but it’ll require a very broad analysis, which is exactly what you wanted; plus, we’ll have to cross-reference a great number of articles to write a full report on it. Pr Melendez will like that.”

“I like your idea too”, Shaun simply says. “It’s very good.”

“I’m trying to put my brain back together after hearing this”, Alex mumbles, looking at her with renewed respect in his eyes. “Remind me to never underestimate you. And Morgan, if you manage to find fault with her idea, I’ll have to side with her – you’ll be doing it on purpose.”

“No, it’s— It’s good”, Morgan has to admit, and Claire finds some sort of twisted pleasure in the shock painted on her face – shock that Morgan doesn’t quite manage to hide. That’s one point for her in their ongoing competition; or rivalry, however people want to call it.

“See? I didn’t bail on you”, she not-so-subtly gloats. “We just weren’t being productive near each other when I left.”

“As much as it pains me to say it… It looks like you were right”, Morgan concedes. “Honestly, I’m a little jealous I didn’t come up with this topic myself. I mean I would have, given enough time, but you beat me to it. I can recognize when I’m wrong, you know.”

“That’s a first, actually”, Alex notes. “I’m just saying.”

Morgan turns to look at him. “That’s because I’ve never been wrong before.”

Claire scoffs. “Right. That, or you have so much ego and pride I’m sure they can be seen from outer space.”

“And just like that, a civil conversation is thrown out the window again”, Alex complains. “You are impossible. Both of you.”

“Yeah, but we’re also one step closer to not having to work with each other anymore thanks to me”, Claire reminds them all.

“And I’m the one filled with immoderate pride”, Morgan remarks pointedly.

Claire doesn’t try to argue this point any further, just rolling her eyes and going back to her lunch. She’s not quite sure what she could say that wouldn’t sound like a lie anyway; she’s never been like that before, preferring quiet achievements to any kind of boasting, but at this moment she just cannot help herself. Not when Morgan freaking Reznick is involved.

(Out of all the things she expected to gain from her first year in med school, a desire to brag definitely wasn’t one of them.)

(And the worst part is? Right now, she doesn’t even want to tone it down.)

Claire has made it a habit to study at Shaun’s place. It’s beneficial for them both: he helps her with particularly tricky subjects that he manages to see through all angles before she’s even done comprehending them at their core; in return, she analyzes some social interactions he’s had during the day and that made very little sense to him so she can find tips to give him to interact with neurotypical people better. They tried to go to her place once for a change, but she has four roommates – including one that she seriously cannot stand – and the noise in the apartment was way too loud for Shaun (and even Claire) to be able to concentrate properly. Besides, he’s more comfortable in his own space anyway and prefers to always keep the same routine, so: his place it was.

The only downside of his apartment can sometimes be his roommate, Lea. She’s nice enough on most days, but whenever she’s bored, she starts to chat with them and stubbornly refuses to take a cue to leave them alone – to the point that they sometimes lose half an hour or more of time they could have spent revising. She also seems to be leading Shaun on at times, which Claire appreciates even less.

That evening, though, she turns out to be incredibly helpful.

“I’m really sorry, Shaun”, Claire is saying when Lea opens her bedroom’s door to join them in the main area, “first for bailing on you yesterday – I was way too pissed off to be a good study buddy to anyone after I left the library –, but also because I’ve come to the conclusion that Pr Melendez’ project means we’re going to have to change our current routine. I just don’t trust Morgan not to try to get ahead if we don’t meet up almost every week day, and an hour each time simply won’t be enough.”

There’s not much she can do about the weekends, since she works shifts as a cashier in a nearby supermarket to help pay for her studies, and she refuses to sacrifice her volunteering work on Thursdays as well, so that leaves her with no choice but to reduce the time she spends studying with Shaun every day – at least until the project’s due date, which is at the end of December. Because Pr Melendez has apparently never heard of having a major project for a semester being due at the end of said semester.

“You make it sound like a group project is about competition rather than cooperation”, Lea laughs. “Does anyone want some orange juice?”

“No thank you”, Shaun says.

“You’ve clearly never met Morgan Reznick”, Claire complains. “Everything is a competition to her; that includes trying to take control of this project, especially now that I’ve found our topic – if Pr Melendez accepts it at the end of the week, that is. She’ll be looking to retaliate. And orange juice seems nice right now.”

“Sounds like fun!” Lea comments sarcastically. “I’m so glad I’ll have very few reports to write as a computer science major, and even more glad I’ll get to write pretty much all of them on my own.”

She hands a glass of orange juice to Claire, who takes it and nods her thanks.

“Do you want to know the best part? I have no idea where we’re even going to work on that damn project. We tried the library yesterday, and it didn’t go too well. We’re much better at arguing than staying quiet.”

Lea grimaces sympathetically. “And your apartment is a noisy mess all the time, right?”

“That, plus she’s never setting foot in it”, Claire asserts forcefully.

“Yeah, that’s fair. Okay, then hear me out, I have an idea”, Lea says, causing Claire to tense up. From experience, she knows that Lea’s ideas can be quite… eccentric. “I work some evenings at a place that’s both a café and a restaurant about ten minutes from here; it’s on campus. The background music is always ridiculously loud so no one will bat an eyelid at the volume of your conversations as long as you don’t openly shout, and you won’t have any trouble finding a place to sit as long as you arrive before 6pm. I can show you the place tomorrow if you want, my shift starts at 5:30.”

Okay, Claire stands corrected. No eccentricity to be seen here, this time.

“That’s a wonderful idea”, she says honestly. Especially since ten minutes from Shaun’s place mean fifteen minutes max from the main building of the med school, so they won’t even have to take a bus to get there. “We won’t have to meet up again until next week because there’s little we can do until we know for sure that Pr Melendez gives our topic the green light, but I’d love to already have a plan by then and that place sounds like everything we’ll need. Including food and drinks. It’s perfect.”

“Can’t you just send him an email?” Lea asks.

“He doesn’t read them”, Shaun says, at the same time as Claire snorts and answers: “Believe me, we’ll have seen him before he reaches our email in his giant pile of unopened ones.”

“Okay then!” Lea exclaims. “Tomorrow it is. Can you get here by 5:10?”

“Easily, I think.”

“Great! Just text me if you’re running late, Shaun will give you my number.”

She retreats to her room then, leaving them to their studying without spending half an hour distracting them this time – unlike what often happened the previous week –, and Claire turns back to Shaun.

“How about this: instead of getting here at 7pm every day I come, I’ll arrive at 8pm until the end of this project? I’ll still leave at 10pm so you don’t have to change your bedtime routine.”

He nods slowly. “Okay”, he agrees, though Claire can see that this turn of events is upsetting him. She wishes there were another way, just she just can’t find one.

“Okay”, she repeats. “And now, back to general human anatomy, I guess.”

They resume studying in near complete silence.

Claire lets out a low groan as soon as she opens her apartment’s door. There’s loud music blasting from one of the rooms – she doesn’t need to check to know which one –, and she knows from experience that complaining about it will lead her nowhere. Her other roommates probably already tried anyway, if they’re there.

What a wonderful night is awaiting her – again.

Indeed, she ends up tossing and turning for almost two hours before she mercifully falls asleep at last; and for most of that time, her thoughts won’t stop coming back to Morgan. Which is something that seems to be happening more and more often.

It would be annoying in any case, but not so much of an issue if her thoughts and feelings about Morgan when she’s alone didn’t differ greatly from when she’s anywhere near her. Morgan in person is an insufferable pain in the ass Claire wants nothing to do with; Morgan in theory is… well, what would be the best way to put it? An enigma Claire can’t seem to stop herself from wanting to solve? A mystery she’s irresistibly drawn to?

Her mind won’t stop replaying their misunderstanding from the previous night on a loop. It’s not so much Morgan revealing she doesn’t like to be touched that Claire can’t seem to stop revisiting, but rather the intensity of her reaction. As if it were a sensitive topic for some reason.

The thing is, Claire is very familiar with trauma. Eighteen years living under the same roof as her mother have given her first-hand experience, for starters, but her volunteering work has also made her witness so much more of it. She used to help out at a shelter for runaway teens in high school and now spends a few hours every Thursday at a shelter for battered women – for which she had to do some training before they’d let her be in contact with these women directly –, so trauma is something she knows how to recognize.

And Morgan just checks a little too many boxes.

Her reaction to slamming doors. Her polar opposite behavior the rest of the time, refusing to show weakness even just once. How she doesn’t like to be touched. How she keeps everyone at arm’s length, never revealing anything personal about herself. How much time and effort she seems to dedicate to her self-defense classes.

All of these things could have many other, different explanations, sure, but… But.

And Morgan isn’t entirely wrong when she says that Claire has too much empathy for her own good sometimes, because it makes her want to help someone who does nothing but aggravate her on a daily basis. And who never asked her for anything.

That last part is the one that’s easy to remember whenever Morgan and her never-ending need to infuriate Claire are nearby. It’s none of her business, and she’s too busy seeing red and getting into heated arguments to worry about what might or might not have happened to Morgan to make her the self-centered, more often than not arrogant person that she is now anyway. She doesn’t care.

She doesn’t care until she’s alone again and she can’t stop thinking that there’s a very strong chance this is just – at least partially – a persona, and a totally different Morgan is probably hiding underneath. The Morgan who, about a week ago, stumbled upon two guys attempting to start bullying Shaun and told them very seriously that she would ruin their life if they ever tried that again.

(There are two things that everyone in their school year knows by now about Morgan Reznick: one, she doesn’t do empty words, and two, if she wants something, she goes after it until she gets it. That makes her someone you don’t want to mess with, and the two bullies were cowards more than fools. Shaun has been left in peace ever since; by everyone.)

When those parts of Morgan seep through, Claire can’t help but notice them and catalogue them. She just can’t stop herself, every time. Except the nearly-permanent air of superiority always comes back in full force then, and Morgan irks her to no end all over again, and Claire remembers that she’s decided she doesn’t care, and the cycle begins anew for the umpteenth time.

Morgan Reznick is, to say the least, a complicated subject.

Claire falls asleep with endless thoughts of her swirling in her mind.

Chapter Text

Pr Melendez approves the topic Claire came up with as soon as she and Morgan submit it to him, and so they start working on it as early as the following Monday. Claire doesn’t waste any time to introduce Morgan to the café-restaurant Lea showed her, and smiles inwardly when Morgan reacts the exact same way she did the previous week at the sight of the truly ridiculous name of the place – who thought ‘Chick ‘n’ Bread’ would be a good idea? It makes any sane person roll their eyes.

Not that Claire is entirely sure Morgan is a sane person, but still.

“The food is better than the name, thankfully”, she reveals just before they step inside.

They sit down at a table in one of the corners at the back, as far away from the other customers as they can so they don’t risk bothering them if their voices manages to get louder than the background music for some reason. Morgan gets a laptop out of her bag and sets it on the table in front of her, and Claire feels a pang of jealousy at the sight of it. She was saving money to buy one too, until her mom stumbled upon it one day and disappeared from the house for half a week only to come back completely wasted and penniless.

“Free WiFi!” Morgan exclaims, dragging Claire out of bitter memories. “Nice. We’ll even be able to do Internet research here.”

“Great”, Claire replies tersely. “You do that, I’ll keep using books.”

Morgan rolls her eyes. “Aren’t you a bit too young to be technology-averse?”

Claire tries to tame the anger she can feel rising in her to the best of her abilities. “I’m not and that’s beside the point, genius. I may not have a fancy laptop but I could use my phone; it’s just that there are only two of us and if we both do Internet research, we carried those heavy ancient things called books all the way to this place for nothing.”

“She has a point”, says a voice behind Claire, and she turns around to see Lea’s familiar face smiling at her.

“Lea! What are you doing here?” she asks, smiling back. She may not be Lea’s biggest fan on any given day, but right now the sight of anyone she knows whose name isn’t Morgan fills her with joy. “I thought your shifts outside of the weekends were only on Wednesdays and Fridays!”

“I took an extra shift because I wanted to meet the classmate from hell; Shaun told me you’d be coming today. My classes finished half an hour ago, I only just got here. How is it going so far?”

“What did you just call me?” Morgan asks, taking offense, but neither Lea nor Claire pay attention to her.

“We just arrived as well”, Claire says. “We haven’t even started working on our project yet; we were just setting up.”

“And we don’t have all evening, since you insist on going to Shaun’s afterwards”, Morgan interjects. “So if you could concentrate on biochemistry rather than chatting with whoever the hell this is, that’d help.”

Lea raises her eyebrows, lets out a half-stunned, half-amused chuckle, and steps forward to pat Claire on the shoulder with sympathy. “I get it now. She’s even more lovely and charming in person than I thought she would be.”

“I don’t recall asking for your opinion”, Morgan retorts icily.

Lea grins at her. “Oh, but do I look like I care? Now I have a job to do, but don’t worry, I’ll be back as soon as you two are ready to order.”

She winks at them before going back to the counter, and Claire can’t hold back the laughter bubbling up her throat at the look on Morgan’s face. In over a month, this is the first time she’s seen Morgan speechless, and she absolutely relishes it. Lea’s sassy and bubbly personality is a miracle worker.

“Are you about done?” Morgan snaps, but the question just adds to Claire’s hilarity. Suddenly, she begins to understand why Alex keeps cracking up at lunch – not that she’ll ever admit that to him.

It takes her forever to calm down, and Morgan glowers at her the entire time. (Out of the corner of her eye, Claire can see Lea having to suppress a laugh from behind the counter as well, and it certainly doesn’t help.) Once her fit of giggles finally subsides, she grabs the menu so she can figure out what she wants to order and motions for Morgan to do the same.

“Let’s get that out of the way before we actually start”, she decides.

“Is it possible to order you actually doing some work?” Morgan asks bitingly.

For once, her tone and behavior don’t actually affect Claire – she almost finds them amusing. She’s enjoying herself, in any case.

“Not on an empty stomach, no”, she answers casually, then shrugs. “The longer you take to order, the later we’ll end up actually starting, you know.”

Morgan snatches the other menu with a huff and glowers at Claire some more. “It’s no secret that I dislike you, but I just want you to know that sometimes I downright despise you.”

If Claire were Lea, she’d be tempted to blow her a kiss right now, but she’s not Lea, so she just shakes her head, completely unaffected. “Read in silence”, she instructs.

“If you shut up as well.”

Claire snorts. “And what if I don’t? You’re going to make me?”

Lea, who has started walking back to them, attempts to refrain from bursting into laughter once more but ends up almost coughing her lungs out instead; although confused at first, Claire suddenly realizes the possible innuendo-like reading of her last question and immediately glares at her with every ounce of outrage in her body. (If she were a bit more vulgar, she’d even gladly flip her off right now.)

Morgan, thankfully, never stops being thoroughly confused by what’s happening – and feels insulted again, obviously.

“Are you two done making fun of me yet?!”

“Let me stop you right now – it’s Claire I’m laughing at this time. Oh, this was just priceless”, Lea half-coughs out. “I almost just died and I regret nothing.”

“I don’t understand”, Morgan admits begrudgingly.

“If you so much as think about explaining, I’ll kill you”, Claire warns Lea very seriously.

“You know, now that I think about it, the amount of tension—”

“One more word and I’ll text Shaun to ask him to lock Hubert in his room.”

Lea gasps. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“Oh, I would. Don’t try me.”

“Okay, fine, you win. Are you ready to order?”

“Your best mixed salad and some water”, Morgan chooses, her voice still lacking any warmth whatsoever. “Also, I feel like I’ll regret asking, but I just have to: who’s Hubert?”

“My goldfish”, Lea answers. “Claire?”

Morgan blinks, then blinks again, and all the while looks at Lea as if she were insane. “I’m never coming back here.”

“We’re both coming back here and this is non-negotiable”, Claire replies calmly. “Burger, fries and orange juice for me please.”

“Incoming as soon as humanly possible!” Lea chirps, whirling around and heading to the kitchens.

Morgan glances down at the time displayed on her laptop’s screen and sighs with annoyance. “We’ve lost almost twenty minutes already.”

“You should learn to loosen up, you know, I think it’d do you good”, Claire mutters. “But we can start now while our food is being cooked.”

“About time”, Morgan mutters in return. “Let’s try to list all the processes that hydroxyl groups play a role in, it’ll be useful basic groundwork.”

They set out to do just that and soon end up with a sizeable – and still growing – list that makes them start to feel like maybe their topic is too ambitious, even for them, and Claire groans once she feels like she’s quite literally drowning in information. Their food has been served and eaten by this point; they’re just working without any distractions and it feels like their head is going to explode at any moment.

“It’s going to take us all week just to finish this list and try to figure out a semi-decent way to structure our composition”, Claire complains, burying her head in her hands.

“I’d love to look down on you and tell you you’re just being weak, but I’m not having the best time either”, Morgan admits. “This project is going to take forever.”

“Yay”, Claire deadpans.

When she leaves Chick ‘n’ Bread that night, walking quickly to Shaun’s apartment in the crisp air of October, her brain feels like it’s about to give up on her. On the bright side, though, she barely argued with Morgan at all after they started actually working, so at the moment she’s neither angry not annoyed – unlike after their brainstorming session the previous week.

It was a good second meet-up.

And the look on Morgan’s face after Lea winked at her still makes Claire smile every time she thinks about it again.

Over the course of the next few days, they begin to develop a routine of their own. At lunch, they discuss whether they need to go to the library to get any additional books or not, then they do just that if they need to during the evening; or they meet at Chick ‘n’ Bread as soon as they’re both done with classes up until around 7:30pm, when Claire leaves the café-restaurant to walk to Shaun’s place. Morgan isn’t particularly happy when she learns that Thursdays – yes, all Thursdays – are a no-go, but, surprisingly, she doesn’t question Claire any further.

They keep arguing rather regularly – though they have so much work to do they can’t let themselves get too worked up either –, their competitiveness in class doesn’t lessen, Claire still thinks about Morgan a little too much to her own liking but never finds a way to stop, and days go by without anything major happening.

On a Tuesday night, as Claire rounds the corner to get to Shaun’s apartment, she almost bumps into Jared coming the opposite way.

“Woah there”, he says, smiling. “Hi. Shaun’s waiting for you; I chatted with Lea a little once we were done working on our project for today, but he almost pushed me out the door when the clock got too close to 8pm. I’ve never met someone so obsessed with following a routine before.”

“He gets anxious if predetermined plans get derailed”, Claire explains. “Speaking of which – I should get going, because I’m almost late already.”

“Yeah, sure. See you later”, he says warmly.

“Good night”, Claire replies, smiling.

She resumes walking, but he calls after her barely a few steps later and she turns back to look at him.

“Wait! Um… I was wondering if you’d like to get coffee one day? When you have some time to yourself, obviously.”

At first, Claire just stares at him without saying anything. She doesn’t really know him; they’ve crossed paths before, sure, but they’ve never really talked, and it’s… weird? To be asked out on what is most likely a date by someone she’s barely said fifty words to in her life? But he’s also good-looking, and attractive, and clearly interested, and… yeah, she’ll think about that later.

“Maybe?” she answers. “I don’t know. We’ll see when things calm down a little, I guess.”

She’s not letting him down, not really, but she’s not brimming with enthusiasm either, and he does his best to not let his disappointment show. “Sure. Keeps me posted, okay?”

“I will”, she says, almost automatically, and walks away with hurried steps so she doesn’t arrive late at Shaun’s.

She has too many things on her plate right now to add dating on top of it.

Claire is in the middle of an argument with Morgan at the end of November, about whether they should dedicate an entire section of their composition to hydrogen bonds or just keep that part as a sub-section, when her phone rings. She gets it out of her pocket and barely glances at the unknown number before sending it straight to voicemail, but it immediately rings again less than a minute later.

“Just give me a second”, she huffs to Morgan before weaving between the tables of Chick ‘n’ Bread and slipping outside to take the call – the background music is just too damn loud inside to hear whoever is at the other end of the line.

“Yes?” she says in a clipped tone.

“Ms Browne?” a male voice asks.

“Yes”, she repeats. “Who is this?”

“My name is Mr McElroy; I work at the school’s administration. I have a woman here who claims to be your mother? She’s been running around on campus grounds for over half an hour looking for you – and, if I may add, she looks slightly intoxicated. I thought it best to call you to verify her story.”

Claire would be lying if she said she’s surprised; she’s been expecting this to happen from the moment she moved out, after all. So, surprised? No. Annoyed, pissed off, bone-deep exhausted? Yes. All three and more.

“That is probably my mother indeed”, she sighs tiredly. “I’m so, so sorry for the inconvenience. Where is she at the moment?”

“In the corridor, waiting. Do you know the part of the building that hosts the administrative wing?”

“Yes, I’ve been to a few offices in that wing before. I’m coming to get her; it should take me less than half an hour to get there. My apologizes again.”

“It’s alright, miss. We’ll be waiting for you.”

Claire hangs up and only barely resists the urge to throw her phone against the wall in frustration; she almost crushes it in her hand instead. She does not have time for her mother’s latest stunt. She has a few exams coming soon, Pr Melendez’ project is still many hours away from being done, and this is decidedly not a good time.

She walks back inside, shoves her books into her bag the second she reaches their table, then waves Lea over with one hand while she grabs her coat with the other under Morgan’s bewildered gaze.

“Emergency”, is what she says by way of explanation. “I have to go now. I’m sorry.”

She really, really doesn’t want to give out details, and especially not to Morgan.

“Woah, you’re in a hurry!” Lea unhelpfully points out when she gets to them.

“Oh, really? What makes you say that?” Morgan retorts sarcastically. She never really warmed up to Lea after their first meeting, and Claire would even consider it possible Lea is above her in Morgan’s list of people she dislikes most. Which is a feat in itself.

Lea completely ignores Morgan’s remark, as she usually does, and asks Claire: “Everything okay?”

“Emergency”, Claire repeats as she pays for her meal and adds a tip for good measure. “I gotta go.”

“What kind of emergency?” Lea calls after her, curious as ever.

“The kind I’d rather didn’t happen”, Claire replies, unwilling to give any sort of detail, though she’s not quite sure Lea can hear her over the background music to begin with.

What is her mom even up to this time?!

“What are you doing here?” Claire hisses when she finds her mother in the school’s corridor, after nearly running the entire way to get there as fast as possible.

“Claire, baby!” her mom answers with a huge smile, opening her arms for a hug that Claire stays pointedly away from.

“What are you doing here?” she repeats, shouting in a whisper so as not to bother the people still working in the nearby offices.

“Well, I came to see you, obviously!”

Claire closes her eyes and takes a deep calming breath. Her mom is obviously off her meds again and in the middle of a manic episode, and the med school’s main building is everything but a good place to have whatever heated argument will certainly result from confronting her about that.

“Ms Browne, I presume?”

Claire turns around to find the man she talked to on the phone – or so she assumes – with his head poking out of an office whose door stayed ajar.

“Yes, sir. Thank you so much for calling me and keeping her here until I arrived; I’ll take her off campus grounds now. Sorry again.”

“I already told you, it’s quite alright. Have a nice evening, Ms Browne.”

There’s understanding in his eyes, mixed with a hint of both sadness and pity, and Claire hates that, in an hour at best, he has probably already understood way too much about her current situation and her mother overall. She doesn’t like people knowing what kind of mother Breeze is, because then they can easily guess what kind of mother she was and what Claire’s childhood looked like – and it’s not something she likes to share at all. The wound is still too raw.

“Have a nice evening as well, Mr McElroy.”

She grabs her mother by the sleeve and practically drags her behind her until they’re out of the building, and then she finds a quiet place to continue her questioning.

“What the hell, mom?! You can’t just come here unannounced or try to find me by asking around! What were you thinking?!”

Breeze looks at her oddly, as if the question were entirely unwarranted. “Well I missed my baby girl, obviously.”

Claire pinches the bridge of her nose and breathes in slowly. “I’m not your baby girl; I’m a goddamn adult, I’m studying to become a surgeon and I left home for a reason!”

Breeze smiles at her. “I know that, honey, but you’ll still stay my baby girl forever. Even though you’re right – look at you, all grown up!”

That’s the moment Claire decides she gives up. She doesn’t even want to know what prompted her mother to come here at this point, she just wants her gone.

“Okay”, she says through gritted teeth, “well you’ve seen me, so here’s what’s going to happen: we’re going to go back to my place, you’re going to spend one – one – night there and that’s only because I don’t have money to waste on a hotel room, and tomorrow you’re going to take the first bus back to Oregon. Is that clear?”

“Oh honey, I’m afraid that won’t be possible”, Breeze answers and Claire feels cold dread run down her spine as her brain immediately comes up with ten terrible scenarios at once – the force of habit, unfortunately. “There’s nothing left for me in Oregon.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Claire asks, her voice a little too high-pitched as dread turns into a fair amount of fear; or maybe she’s already downright panicking, she’s not even sure. What did her mother do this time?!

“Well I got evicted from our old apartment”, Breeze answers, waving a hand around dismissively, “it’s all a big misunderstanding, but whatever. So I thought – hey, why don’t I go visit my baby? I haven’t seen you in months and, well, if I have to go through the hassle of finding a new apartment to rent, I might as well do it here!”

That’s the last straw for Claire. “You will not rent an apartment in San José”, she says, raising her voice. “This is my city, my life, and I do not want you in it in any way. You’re a mess, mom; I can smell alcohol on your breath and you’ve obviously stopped taking your meds for the umpteenth time. NOTHING has changed since I left, and I know by experience that nothing ever changes. How many weeks, how many days until your next psychotic break? Until you try to KILL ME again? How much time do you think could pass until you stole my money to go get wasted God knows where again? I’ve dealt with that; for eighteen years. Well, now I’m legally old enough to tell you I want nothing to do with you anymore. You’ve put me through enough. I’m done. I’ll find a way to get you out of this city to some place permanent, but it’s the last thing I’ll ever do for you. After that, if you ever want to see me again, take your damn meds and get clean first. For real. Maybe then I’ll be willing to reconsider. But otherwise, once I get you out of here? Stay the hell away from me.”

Claire doesn’t wait for an answer and turns on her heel, leaving a slack-jawed Breeze to run after her to catch up. She’s furious, even more so than right after she got the phone call what already feels like forever ago, but she still feels bad about screaming at her mother like that – no matter how warranted all her accusations were.

And damn – just this once, she wishes she could be a little more like Morgan; Morgan who can casually throw hurtful things at someone and not give a damn.

“But baby—” Breeze tries to say.

Claire doesn’t let her. “Save it”, she bites out. “And stop calling me that.”

She fishes her phone out of her pocket, then navigates to her text conversation with her most reliable roommate. (Also the only one Claire is close enough to that she got to choose her name as a contact in her phone.)

Are you at the apartment?

Jenny the roomie: yeah, why?

My mom showed up and I have no choice but to bring her back with me right now.

Can you get everything that so much as looks like it contains alcohol in the apartment and put it in your room please?

Your *locked room

I’ll owe you one

Jenny the roomie: your mom sounds fun

Jenny the roomie: it’s okay, i got you boo

You have NO idea

Thank you so much

The next text she sends is to Shaun, telling him there’s been an emergency and she’ll have to skip class tomorrow – probably Friday as well –, and finally her last text goes to the woman running the shelter for battered women she usually volunteers at every Thursday, to warn her that she’ll exceptionally have to miss one day. She knows her mother too well to risk letting her out of her sight until she can send her away permanently.

She just hopes she’ll be able to do that quickly enough.

It’s not quick, and it doesn’t go well, and by the time Friday night rolls around, Claire is exhausted. She’s had shouting matches with her mother when her roommates weren’t around, she’s had to figure out the delicate balance that comes with letting Breeze consume some alcohol – not too much, but not too little either so withdrawal doesn’t become an issue –, she’s barely slept during the past two nights, and honestly the only thing keeping her from throwing her mom out and to hell with it at this point is the knowledge that she’d gain nothing from it.

Well, she’d get a temporary respite. But then Breeze would just show up at her doorstep again in a similar fashion somewhere in the near future, now that she knows exactly where the apartment is, and they’d be back to exactly where they left off without any progress at all.

So what Claire needs is a permanent solution.

And no matter how much she racks her brain and searches the Internet and makes phone calls, she just can’t find one.

So at 6pm on Friday, as she struggles not to fall asleep on the table in the living room of her apartment and only resists because of the loud music blaring through one of the bedroom doors, the last thing she needs is someone ringing the doorbell insistently.

“I’ll get it!” she half-yells to her roommates, since she owes them that much after they’ve all put up with Breeze for two days with no prior warning.

Sighing with annoyance, she gets up and marches to the door, that she opens wide with a bit (or a lot) more force than necessary. And then freezes. Because…

Because okay, maybe the true last thing she needs isn’t someone ringing the doorbell insistently after all.

It’s rather Morgan fucking Reznick standing right in front of her apartment door at 6pm on a Friday.

And as the first wave of shock washes away, Claire seriously wonders what she could ever have done wrong to deserve the hellish week that’s been so violently thrust upon her.

Chapter Text

“Morgan”, is the only thing Claire’s sluggish brain manages to come up with. Sleep deprivation, mental exhaustion and utter surprise are a terrible combo, it turns out; she keeps blinking owlishly while she tries to process Morgan’s sudden appearance, but it’s not going too well.

“Oh, good! You remember my existence”, Morgan replies, voice dripping with both sarcasm and annoyance, though there’s a masterfully hidden touch of concern in it as well.

“Claire, where are your manners?” Breeze cuts in as she gets up from her chair and walks up to them. “Just welcome her in! Hi, I’m Claire’s mom, so nice to meet you. And who might you be? Friend? Girlfriend, maybe? Oh, I do hope—”

Claire’s brain finally kick-starts back into action at the word ‘girlfriend’; the realization that her mom just outed her to Morgan of all people is enough to make her suddenly remember how to be a semi-functional human being.

“Who is she? ‘Major pain in my ass’ and ‘arch nemesis’ would be understatements”, she says, not bothering to hide the anger in her voice – though she’s not entirely certain who it’s directed at more, Morgan or her mom. “And she’s also not supposed to know where I live, so we’re going to talk about that in a minute”, she adds, looking pointedly at Morgan before literally closing the door in her face and turning to her mom, “but in the meantime, shut up and sit. DOWN.”

“Claire, what—” Breeze tries to ask, but the furious glare she gets for her effort is enough for her to decide to comply this time. She raises her hands up in surrender and goes back to her chair behind the table, shaking her head in disappointment.

Not that Claire pays her any mind, too busy knocking on Jenny’s bedroom door.

“Come in!”

“Jen, your door’s locked”, Claire reminds her. (Her angel of a roommate has been keeping everything alcoholic hidden in her room for the two days since Breeze showed up and never once forgot to lock her door, and Claire doesn’t know how she’ll ever thank her enough for that.)

“Oh, yeah. Right. Just a sec.”

There’s some shuffling behind the door, then a key turning in a lock, and finally Jenny’s face appears in front of Claire.

“Do you need something?”

“If I ask you to keep an eye on my mom while I go deal with Morgan, will you kill me for abusing of your goodness one time too many?” Claire whispers to her, low enough that Breeze can’t hear her from where she’s sitting.

“Morgan… Morgan, as in ‘we’re forced to do a project together but I can’t stand her’ Morgan?” Jenny asks for clarification, frowning.

“The one and only”, Claire sighs.

“You gave her your address?!”

“No. But I can assure you I’ll know how she got it in five minutes.”

Jenny smiles at her with sympathy then gets out of her room and locks the door behind her, careful to have her back turned to Breeze before stealthily putting the key in her bra. “Go. I’ll handle your mom while you’re gone.”

“Thanks. Seriously. I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but thank you.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere”, Jenny says, laughing, then thinks for a second. “Or, well— More like I already agreed to help you, so you don’t have to bother. Just go and get some of that frustration out, okay?”

Claire mouths “thank you” one last time then grabs her coat from the rack, and five seconds later she’s out of her apartment.

Morgan is waiting for her, her back against the opposite wall and her arms crossed.

“Did you just shut the door in my face?!” she exclaims, insulted.

“Talk to me on that tone just once more and I’m doing it again, but for good this time”, Claire promises her. She’s too tired and too pissed off to have such a stupid argument.

Without waiting for an answer or the elevator that she knows from experience will take forever to get down to the third floor, she marches down the stairs in silence until she’s in the street and the fresh air helps calm her down a little. Morgan is following her without a word, and Claire feels like that is a small miracle in itself already.

… One that doesn’t last, obviously.

“So Saint Claire does have real claws, after all”, Morgan notes, with something akin to amusement, as soon as they begin walking side by side. “Who would have known.”

“Stop calling me that!!” Claire nearly shouts, earning a few annoyed glances from the rare passer-bys.

“Oh please”, Morgan retorts, rolling her eyes, “it fits you perfectly. You spend your time at school helping those who are struggling every chance you get, don’t think I didn’t notice that; you’re the only one in all of our classes who bothered to learn how to best communicate with Shaun, and you didn’t even have a specific reason that could have pushed you to do that – aside from you being, well, you, of course –; your motto, if you had one, could just as well be ‘love, empathy and compassion for all’. You do everything out of the goodness of your heart. You’re basically a saint.”

“People behaving better than you doesn’t make them saints, just decent human beings”, Claire retorts, scathing.

Morgan looks at her curiously, without antagonizing her even further for once. “You really believe that, don’t you?”

“I— No, you know what, this conversation is pointless and we’re losing time. Moving on. How did you get my address?!”

“I asked Shaun.”

Claire stares at Morgan with disbelief. “I have trouble believing he gave it to you just like that. I know him; he wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, he did. Convincing him wasn’t very hard – I couldn’t bring you copies of the classes you missed during the last two days if I didn’t know where you live, now could I?”

“Aaaand there we go. Just so you know, taking advantage of him not realizing you’re lying to him is a shitty thing to do”, Claire huffs, pissed off.

Morgan doesn’t turn to look at her, this time, and keeps staring straight ahead instead. “Who says I was lying?”

Claire stops dead in her tracks. “Excuse me, what?”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

“Actually, yes, it is. You can’t stand me, and I’m supposed to think you brought me copies of the classes I missed? Out of, what, the goodness of your heart?” Claire asks, repeating Morgan’s words from earlier.

Morgan just shrugs. “Oh, I never said I didn’t have an ulterior motive.”

“Now that makes more sense. Enlighten me.”

“You’re going to catch up on those two days’ worth of lectures at some point, that’s a given. But if I bring the copies to you now, you can do it during the weekend and there’s no risk of you bailing on me for our project yet another time next week”, Morgan explains patiently. “So nice of you to warn me for tonight, by the way. I really appreciated it.”

“I don’t have your number”, Claire reminds her, her mouth churning out words on autopilot. Her brain is stuck trying to process the fact that Morgan brought her copies of the classes she missed; and sure, she has a perfectly rational explanation as to why, but it still feels deeper than that. If their project was not just an excuse in some way, would Morgan be so carefully avoiding her gaze now?

This feels…

This feels like the Morgan Reznick who is hiding underneath. The one Claire hasn’t been able to stop thinking about for weeks now when she’s alone, the one who she’s seen glimpses of so far – when Morgan stood up for Shaun or when she bickers almost fondly with Alex at lunch sometimes, because he can look past her permanent air of superiority somehow –, but never…

Claire has never experienced Morgan being soft-hearted with her before.

It kind of throws her world upside down.

Not that she gets to dwell on it at the moment.

“You could have asked Shaun to warn me”, Morgan remarks.

“Yeah, well, trust me, I had other fish to fry”, Claire retorts, still on autopilot. There’s no real bite to her tone, though, unlike what would usually happen if they were to have an argument like this one.

“I didn’t know you lived with your mom”, Morgan says instead of pushing the issue. Claire knows why; it’s not hard to guess – Morgan isn’t even trying to be subtle.

Right now, though, she doesn’t care if the comment is meant to try to get information on what kept her away from the school for two days. She’s too exhausted and still too shocked by Morgan being nice to her, even if just to an extent, to remember to distinguish between what she should be saying and what she should be keeping to herself.

“I don’t live with my mom”, she retorts immediately. “Quite the opposite, actually – I’m trying to get her out my apartment as soon as possible.”

“Huh. She seems nice”, Morgan says conversationally.

Claire explodes.

There’s no warning to hint at what’s coming next, nothing to prepare Morgan for the way she suddenly breaks. It just happens, like the release of something that’s been kept inside for too long and desperately needs to get out.

“Nice? Nice?! My mom has been abusing me my entire life. She’s bipolar, but she forgets to take her meds more often than not. She’s an alcoholic who would buy herself some booze before she’d remember to pay the rent. She tried to kill me more than once in the middle of a psychotic break; I was not even ten the first time it happened. She used to bring over men that terrified me to the point I’d hide in my closet to make sure they wouldn’t find me during the night. And you think she’s nice?! She’s a nightmare. She got evicted from our old apartment and decided to just show up here, as if I ever wanted to see her again. But I have nowhere to send her back to, I’ve barely slept for two days, she doesn’t know how to take no for an answer, and I just can’t do this anymore!”

Claire is out of breath by the time she’s done; and as her brain catches up with her mouth, she immediately becomes horrified at the realization that she’s just confided all of that in Morgan of all people. All those things she’s ashamed of, that she’s kept a secret since she arrived in San José, are now out in the open and heard by the worst person Claire could have ever imagined.

And she has no way to take any of it back.

But Morgan doesn’t look like she’s filing away information to reuse against Claire later that year. She’s just staring at her, mouth slightly agape, eyes gentle and with something a little too close to understanding in them. No pity, at least, but Claire isn’t surprised by that. Morgan Reznick doesn’t do pity.

“I think you need to sit down”, Morgan says, very careful with her words, and Claire suddenly realizes that her entire body is shaking more or less violently. It’s like reality is catching up to her in a flash after that; the taste of salt on her lips comes next, and until then she hadn’t even noticed she had started to cry.

Morgan is right. She needs to sit down, and preferably before the shaking gets so bad her knees stop supporting her weight.

She’s been in this neighborhood long enough by now that she can recall seeing a bench just around the corner once, so she walks hurriedly up to that spot and all but lets herself fall down onto the wooden planks. Morgan sits next to her, though she leaves a healthy amount of space between them and Claire appreciates that it doesn’t make her feel trapped. 

“So your mom is not nice”, Morgan rectifies, her voice completely deadpan.

It makes Claire laugh, for some reason. She doesn’t even mean to; it just bubbles up her throat before she’s fully realized what is happening. That Morgan would react like that to her outburst is so absurd… and yet not surprising at all, in the end, because it’s just such a Morgan thing to do.

“That’s the gist of it, yeah”, she says between two quiet sniffles mixed with hiccups of laughter.

She turns her head to look at Morgan when the latter stays quiet but finds her seemingly lost in her thoughts, so she lets herself relax somewhat and closes her eyes, waiting for her body and especially her hands to stop shaking. Releasing all that she’d been holding inside for so long took its toll on her at first, leaving her raw and vulnerable and on edge, but now that a few minutes have passed since she let the truth out, she feels better and even a tiny bit relieved. She needed to say it loud, even if she didn’t realize that before.

“Is your mom religious?”

The question, completely out of place, pulls Claire back to the present.

“What?” she asks, opening her eyes to look at Morgan with confusion.

“Is your mom religious?” Morgan repeats, more slowly and with poorly-masked irritation in her voice.

“What has that got to do with anything?”

“Can’t you just answer a simple question?!”

The annoyance in Morgan’s voice is so familiar at this point, after a few weeks of knowing her, that Claire has to refrain from smiling at the sound of it. It’s grounding, in a way, and that’s not entirely unwelcome considering how much of a mess she is tonight.

“No, she’s not. Now will you tell me why?”

Morgan averts her gaze from Claire’s to look up at the sky. “Because I might know a place you could send your mother to. But it would have been easier if she’d been Catholic.”

This is the moment Claire starts to wonder if she’s been thrown into some alternate universe where things make absolutely no sense. Her sluggish brain isn’t helping, of course, but— “What?”

Morgan looks down again to half-heartedly glare at her. “Am I not speaking English?”

“That’s not— I’m— You’re—” Claire tries to say, but she has no idea where to start. Huffing, she finally opts for: “I’ve slept five hours during the last two nights; and not five hours each night – that would have been nice – but five hours in total. You can’t just throw around things like that with zero context and expect me to get what you’re talking about.”

“I know a place— Well, I know someone who is a friend of the owners, but—” Morgan stops and huffs as well, apparently frustrated of searching for words that won’t come. Claire can’t help but get the feeling that whatever this is, it’s an uncomfortable subject for Morgan to talk about, and she adds it to her seemingly never-ending mental list of things she’s getting curious about.

“I’m guessing it has something to do with religion?” Claire pushes gently.

“It’s— Yeah. Think of it as a rehabilitation center, but revolving around— Well… The Bible’s teachings.”

“My mom is never going there willingly.”

Morgan shakes her head. “That’s not the point. It wouldn’t matter much once she got there anyway.”

“I’m not following.”

“A lot of people in that center aren’t there willingly. Some check themselves in, but most are addicts, or suicidal, or unstable, and their families send them there to get help – kind of like a mental institution, actually. Once inside the property, they’re not allowed to leave until they’ve gotten better.”

Claire looks at her oddly. “Morgan, that sounds like a religious cult of some sort. Is it even legal?”

“To be honest, I have no idea”, Morgan admits. “But I may also not be giving the best description.”

“Have you ever been there?” Claire asks, intrigued.

“Once. For a visit.”

Morgan’s curt tone warns Claire not to push her relationship with this place any further, so she doesn’t. It seems to be too personal for Morgan to discuss openly.

“Could I visit it to see what it’s really like?”

She’s not necessarily the biggest fan of the concept, but it’s the best option she has at this point – the only option, really, since she was completely out of ideas when Morgan showed up. It’s worth a shot, at least.

“I guess? I need to make a phone call to confirm, though. Wait for me here.”

Without waiting for a reply, Morgan gets up and goes far enough away to be of out earshot, leaving Claire alone with her thoughts and some slight (alright, major) bewilderment. Out of all the ways she expected this evening to go, Morgan going out of her way to help her with her mom was not one of them.

She’s still not a hundred percent sure she didn’t pass out from exhaustion and isn’t currently dreaming – or even hallucinating due to the lack of sleep. It just feels too… surreal to really be happening. Except it apparently is.

By the time Morgan makes her way back to her, Claire has managed to get her brain to actually think again; enough to put her finger on a major problem that should have been obvious to her from the start, at least.

“I think you made that phone call for nothing. I don’t have the money to pay for that place, no matter what it costs”, she admits reluctantly.

Morgan shakes her head. “The patients work to contribute to their daily life there. Otherwise, the center runs on donations; you won’t have to pay if you can’t.”

Claire looks at her dubiously. “You know this sounds too good to be true, right?”

“You’ll get to see by yourself”, Morgan replies with a shrug. “They’re expecting you tomorrow.” 

“Why are you doing this?” Claire asks, suddenly wary. What if this is all a trick? What if Morgan is just messing with her for some reason?

“Again, I need you to be functional so we finish our project on time”, Morgan answers with another shrug.

This time, it feels like even more of an excuse than when she said she was bringing her copies of the classes she missed, but Claire doesn’t call her out on it. She doesn’t know why Morgan straight up refuses to admit there’s some actual goodness in her, but right now isn’t the time to have that conversation.

“I know I said my apartment was off limits when I set the ground rules at the beginning of the project”, she says instead, hesitating a little, “but, now that you know where I live anyway… We could catch up on our usual Friday session on Sunday, if you’re free during the afternoon? And if my mom isn’t at my place by then, of course.”

After tonight, it feels like the least she can do – especially since, without being behind on their project, they’re not really ahead of their schedule either. They really chose an extremely vast topic.

And Chick ‘n’ Bread is closed on Sundays.

Morgan pretends to be shocked. “Saint Claire breaking a rule? And her own, no less?” she teases.

“I’ll take my offer back if you don’t stop calling me that”, Claire warns, glaring at her.

It’s relieving, in a way, to be going back to their regular dynamic, even though they’re not really trying to get under each other’s skin like they usually would. It’s familiar enough that Claire instinctively knows how to react, unlike during their entire conversation before this moment.

“Sunday afternoon works for me”, Morgan says, dropping her teasing without pushing any further. “Just don’t tell me at the last minute whether it’s okay for you or not.”

“I’ll know tomorrow night anyway”, Claire replies, fishing her phone out of her pocket so Morgan can give her the center’s number and address.

She ends up going back to her apartment with Morgan’s number as well, since she’ll need it to confirm for Sunday afternoon, plus the copies of the classes she missed that she was promised from the beginning, and none of this has stopped feeling surreal by the time she thanks Jenny (again) for keeping an eye on her mom longer than she thought she’d had to.

She sends a text to her manager at the supermarket to inform him that she’ll have to miss her shift on Saturday due to a family emergency, though she hopes she’ll make it to her Sunday morning one, and then puts her phone on silent so it doesn’t risk waking her up from however little sleep she’ll manage to get that night.

She has a four-hour drive – both ways – awaiting her tomorrow.

She borrows one of her roommates’ car since she doesn’t own one, and ends up having to take her mom with her on her road trip so she can keep an eye on her during the drive. Otherwise, she’d have to try to find someone who could watch her almost the entire day, and that would be somewhere near impossible on such short notice.

The good news is that the center is nearly isolated; so even if Breeze decided to wander out of the car while Claire is visiting, she couldn’t really go too far.

They get there around noon. The property is huge, with a few fields surrounding the habitations, and Claire parks just outside the gates.

“Wait for me here”, she tells her mom as she gets out of the car.

“Where are we?” Breeze asks, but Claire doesn’t give her more of an answer than during the entire drive, when she heard the question “where are we going?” many more times than she could have bothered to count.

After taking a deep breath, she presses on the intercom’s button then introduces herself once someone answers on the other end. A buzz later, and she’s in.

The people she meets are a lot more level-headed than she expected them to be. She had braced herself for a bunch on fanatics, or overly-religious people at best, but it turns out not to be the case at all – to the point where, about halfway through the tour, she admits to the owners that her preconceived ideas are turning out to be the complete opposite of what she’s actually seeing. It makes them laugh softly.

“It happens often”, one of the three women says. “It’s hard to describe our center on paper without making it sound really strange at best. Though, at the other end of the spectrum, we also regularly have extremely Catholic people coming here and expecting us to be something we’re not.” She rolls her eyes and adds: “You can’t imagine how many times we’ve had to say the words ‘no sir, we’re not here to force Jesus onto people, we just believe the Bible’s teachings – among other things – can help them get better’. Whether they’re religious or not.”

Claire is about to say something in response, but the words die on her tongue when they walk back outside and her she ends up face-to-face with none other than her mother, accompanied by someone who most probably works for the center as well.

“I distinctly remember telling you to wait for me in the car”, she says through gritted teeth.

“You should know me better by now”, Breeze answers, unapologetic. “Hi”, she introduces herself to the owners, “I’m Breeze Browne, Claire’s mom. And I’m assuming it’s me we’re here for.”

“How much do you know about this place already?” Claire asks with a bone-weary sigh, feeling the situation slipping through her fingers. She can already imagine what’s going to follow – a temper tantrum, their umpteenth screaming contest, and probably—

“Enough to say I’m probably going to stay here for the time being.”

Claire’s jaw goes slack. “You— What?”

“I heard you when you said you wanted me out of your life unless I got better, honey”, Breeze answers with a small sad smile, “even though I know it might not look like it.”

“You mean it really didn’t look like it during the last two days”, Claire scoffs.

The owners and the person who accompanied her mom, whoever he is, have all taken a step back and are now watching their argument in silence without trying to intervene. Claire appreciates it.

Breeze tilts her head to the side. “Or you didn’t listen to me when I said I wanted to get better if you just gave me a chance.”

“Because I’ve heard that a million times before! I’ve seen it unfold and I know how it ends!”

“That’s why I said I’m staying here”, Breeze repeats. “At least, here, I can’t be a danger to you no matter what happens. And if I do succeed in getting better, well, maybe I can try to be a real mother to you for the first time in my life then.”

The biggest part of Claire, the one that has been forged from years of abuse, doesn’t actually believe that; but a smaller part, the remnants of a child who dreamed of hearing those words and see them become reality so many times, causes a spark of hope to ignite inside of her against her will. And she hates that it does – that her mom still has power over her with just a few words even after everything she’s put her through.

“We’ll see how that actually goes”, Claire retorts icily.

“We’ll need you to sign a few forms”, one of the owners tells Breeze. “Including one that says you agree not to be released until either someone gets you out, or you’re deemed healthy enough to go.”

Breeze nods with determination. “I’ll sign them.”

“Alright, then. Please follow us.”

Claire falls into step behind them, too wary not to stay until she sees her mother actually scribbling her name on those forms that she thought she’d be the one signing instead. This is a turn of events she wasn’t expecting.

“I really thought I’d need to have you committed”, she mutters, incredulous, when her mother’s signature truly does end up at the end of those forms.

The owners look at her oddly. “You couldn’t have done that. We’re not a mental institution; we don’t have the authority to let people do such a thing.”

“Huh. But my friend said—”

Claire stops, more out of shock at hearing herself call Morgan a friend than because she doesn’t want to finish her sentence.

“Maybe your friend knows a minor who was committed here by her parents”, the woman explains. “That can legally happen, and most of our residents are actually minors. But for adults, it’s impossible.”

“Maybe”, Claire mumbles. “I don’t know. But that does make sense.”

Breeze waves her goodbye before being escorted out of the office and to what will become her bedroom by the guy who’s been accompanying her from the start, while Claire lingers in the office until she’s out of earshot. There’s something she needs to add, but to the owners only.

“I don’t want to be in contact with my mom while she’s here”, she says haltingly, “but if you could… If you could tell me how she’s doing from time to time, without her knowing about it, I’d really appreciate that.”

She gets an answer accompanied by a genuine smile. “Of course. We can do that.”

Claire walks out of New Beginnings with the promise of regular news, the feeling of a giant weight having been lifted from her shoulders, and the burning desire to sleep for twelve hours straight.

She does just that the moment she makes it back to her apartment.

Chapter Text

Welcoming Morgan into her apartment, her room, her space, is weird. Less uncomfortable than Claire was expecting, though the curious glances that Morgan makes no effort to hide still lead to some self-consciousness, but it could be way worse overall. The fact that neither of them seems to know exactly where they stand now does help, in a way, because it makes them both tiptoe around each other in a very uncharacteristic manner.

“Do you want something to drink?” Claire offers, trying her best not to fidget because, while acting as if Morgan were any other classmate she could be inviting to her place is weird, she really doesn’t know what else to do.

“Tea, if you have some.”

“Sure.”

Claire clears her throat and leaves her room to head to the kitchen, where Jenny welcomes her with raised eyebrows and a curious look.

“Is the girl who just came in who I think she is?”

“Yes. Don’t ask”, Claire warns her while she gets two mugs out of the cupboard.

Jenny shrugs innocently. “As long as you two don’t get into a cat-fight, I’m good.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that”, Claire mutters, throwing her a murdering look.

“You know I mean it with love”, Jenny says, laughing, as she gets out of the kitchen to go back to her room.

And, really, Claire can’t complain too much about the teasing, considering how much Jenny helped her with her mom during the two days she was here.

She boils enough water for two cups, waiting impatiently for it to heat up, then pours it into the mugs and sets them on a tray that she brings back to her room. She finds Morgan looking curiously around; though for what reason exactly, Claire couldn’t tell.

“You can’t force people to stay at New Beginnings against their will”, she blurts out, “unless they’re a minor and you’re their parent.”

She’s not quite sure what pushes her to say that, rather than literally anything else she could have come up with to direct Morgan’s attention to something other than the contents of her room; it just… happens.

“So… Where is your mom now?” Morgan asks, confused.

“She chose to stay. She checked herself in.”

“She— Oh. You made it sound as if that would never happen.”

“I was the first one surprised”, Claire admits. “I just—”

She stops herself, biting her tongue to keep from adding anything else. For a second, she almost forgot it’s Morgan she’s talking to, not an actual friend – Jenny would be closer to that category, and yet Claire didn’t even tell her where she drove her mom to. So why was she seconds away from admitting to Morgan that there’s a part of her that can’t help but still cling on to the childish hope that her mom will actually put in the work to get better this time?

“We should get to work”, she grumbles instead.

“You’re gay”, Morgan replies without missing a beat; then, a second later, looks like she truly shocked herself by saying the words out loud – as if she didn’t mean to.

Claire is pretty sure she’s never had a stranger conversation in her life.

“No”, she says shortly.

“Oh. I— I assumed, when your mom asked if I was your—”

Claire rolls her eyes and cuts her off. “Bisexuality exists. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Oh.”

Well. At least, now, they both look exactly as uncomfortable, instead of just Claire feeling out of place in her own room.

“Is there another question you want to ask?” she enquires pointedly.

“I— No.”

Come to think about it, Claire realizes that this is the first time she’s seen Morgan looking out of her depth. Ever. It’s… weird.

But then again, everything since Morgan set foot in the apartment has been weird. Her looking uncharacteristically tense and self-conscious now is just the latest addition to the list.

She recovers quickly when they start working, though, and Claire isn’t quite sure whether she prefers having the regular Morgan in front of her or not at the end of the day. The familiarity is welcome, sure, but it also feels… off, somehow. Enough for Claire to hold back on the retorts that she’d usually throw without ever giving it a second thought.

It seems impossible to just go back to their old dynamic now, considering the conversation they had on Friday and how personal it was for Claire, but Morgan still seems to be doing her best to lead them to just that. As if she were trying to erase any sense of both familiarity and awkwardness that arose between them, for some reason.

“Pr Melendez covered that subject in detail during Friday’s class”, Morgan sighs with annoyance at some point, after Claire asked a question that she thought was warranted. “You didn’t read the copies I brought you yet?”

The answer that burns the tip of Claire’s tongue is something along the lines of a scathing “between bringing my mom to New Beginnings yesterday and my student job this morning, no, I did not quite have the time to read them yet”, but instead, she puts her pen down and sits back in her chair to stare at Morgan without a word.

“What?” the latter bites out.

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what, exactly?”

“Your best to keep everyone at arm’s length. Acting as if you didn’t care.”

“What do you even mean by that?” Morgan attempts to dismiss, but Claire isn’t fooled. She can see Morgan swallowing hard and suddenly casting her eyes aside – two sure signs that she’s put her finger on something a little too personal to be comfortable.

So she makes a decision right then and there.

She’s seen too much of the other side of Morgan by now to let it slide out of her grasp without saying anything. She doesn’t want to go back to thinking about that part of her more than she really should from afar, as if Morgan hadn’t helped her with her mom two days ago even though she absolutely did not have to do that, when she could truly get to know her instead.

Besides, she doesn’t want to keep wasting so much energy arguing with Morgan on a daily basis. They have important exams coming up soon, and getting so worked up over an abrasive persona just really feels so pointless to her now. As if being confronted to her mom again had forced her to reevaluate her priorities and made her relegate ‘petty fights out of mutual stubborn pride’ to the bottom of the list.

“You didn’t have to help me, but you did, even though I didn’t ask for anything – thank you, by the way, because I’d still be stuck here with my mom if you hadn’t stepped in. And you’re the reason Shaun isn’t getting bullied, even though you could have just walked past without saying a word the day it happened. You act like you don’t care about anyone or anything, but that’s just not true. And then… And then you turn around and try to be even more infuriating than usual so we’ll forget that there’s more to you than meets the eye, and it’s so frustrating. I don’t get why you do that. It’s like… It’s like you’re scared to let people in, so you hide behind scathing remarks and a bitchy attitude to discourage people from even wanting to try. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t think you’re lying about how competitive and ambitious you are, but I do think you’re over-exaggerating those traits so that no one will bother to look any further. And I don’t get why. Doesn’t it get tiring? Doesn’t it get lonely?”

There’s a long, very long moment of tense silence during which Claire watches Morgan carefully, notices how many things are flashing in her eyes in quick succession – too quick for Claire to be able to analyze them – and wonders if she was right to say what she’d been very careful to keep to herself so far. She knows she crossed a line, or maybe even several, and suddenly she’s not too sure she really wants to know what she’ll find on the other side. It’s too late to go back, though, so there’s very little to do except for waiting.

And it takes a while for Morgan to come up with an answer; but when she does, she lets it out in a sarcastic scoff.

“Are you rethinking your career plan? It’s not too late yet to become a psychologist rather than a surgeon, if you like that so much. Also, what is it you said earlier again? It’s none of your business?”

One week ago, Claire would have let that get under her skin. One week ago, she would have taken the bait in a heartbeat; she wouldn’t have cared to look past the intention to annoy or even hurt – at least not while in front of Morgan, not until she was alone to rewind and rethink their interactions.

Today, she just smiles sadly, and pretends she didn’t hear Morgan’s voice shake despite her best efforts.

“See? This is exactly what I’m talking about. And you have every right to shut me out; we’re not exactly friends, but… I see you. I guess that’s all I wanted to say – I see you. I’m not telling you to talk to me or anything, I just…” She hesitates, trying to find the right words to express what she means, but what comes out next ends up surprising herself maybe even more than Morgan. “I think we might actually have a lot in common. And if one day you’re not so stubbornly set on pretending you’re fine all on your own, well… I guess you’ll know where to find me.”

The shock that paints itself on Morgan’s features at the admission is the perfect mirror of the one that flashes through Claire’s mind, although she does her best not to let it show, and they end up staring at each other wordlessly for a moment.

Until two of her roommates start yelling at each other for some reason, and Morgan nearly jumps out of her skin at the sound.

Claire notices how she instinctively curls in on herself the next second, fists so tight on her lap that the skin of her hands turns white, and the training she went through before she started volunteering at the shelter for battered women kicks in on instinct.

Whatever trauma is causing Morgan to react at slamming doors and loud angry arguments, putting a name or a history on it doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that she needs a distraction.

And, Morgan being Morgan, for Claire to absolutely not acknowledge out loud what just happened.

“Alright, anyway – the matter is closed for now. I made us lose enough time like that as it is”, Claire says, in a tone that aims for casual. “So you were saying that Pr Melendez expanded on the structure of the ATP-synthase during Friday’s class?”

Morgan looks at her, startled and slightly lost at first, but she pulls herself together quickly. “Yes. He gave details about the inner structure of the F0 and F1 units and also about the importance of the proton gradient to drive the ATP synthesis forward, considering that the reaction is energetically unfavorable. But we don’t actually need to describe any of that when we mention that adding or substracting phosphate groups is done, more specifically, through their and the main molecule’s hydroxyl groups. It’s not relevant.”

“I’m going to trust you on this, since I’m not entirely sure I understood everything you just said”, Claire admits. “Speaking of, wouldn’t it be easier if we switched and you wrote the part about ATP synthesis while I wrote the one about the citric acid cycle? At least I already know the details without needing to ask questions every ten minutes.”

Morgan shrugs, visibly more relaxed now that Claire’s roommates have stopped yelling at each other. “If you prefer. I don’t care.”

So they switch parts without another word, and then go back to writing in silence. Neither of them acknowledges their previous conversation any further, but Claire can still feel it hanging in the air between them the entire time until Morgan leaves.

And so at the end of the day, she still has no idea where they stand with each other exactly.

Claire is the last one to arrive at their table the next day at lunch. She stayed behind to apologize to the professor of their last class for her absence on Thursday, so they’ve all already started to eat by the time she sits down next to Shaun. He’s attempting to read a book, as per usual, while Alex and Morgan are bickering in front of him.

“Organic chemistry is much easier to understand than biochemistry”, Alex is saying, waving his fork wildly in the air. “And much more interesting as well.”

“You have to be the only person in the world who actually appreciates studying organic chemistry”, Claire tells him as she grabs her own fork and knife. “Your opinion doesn’t count.”

“Thank you. I’ve been trying to tell him as much for five minutes now”, Morgan grumbles.

“Besides, you didn’t sign up for Pr Melendez’ biochemistry class, so what do you even know about it?” Claire continues.

“Just because I didn’t sign up for an advanced class like the insane bunch that the three of you are doesn’t mean I don’t take a biochemistry class”, Alex reminds her. “It’s mandatory for first-year students… Unfortunately.”

“I like biochemistry and organic chemistry”, Shaun pipes up.

It makes Claire smile. “Of course you do. I’m convinced there’s not a single class you don’t like – even those you already know half the contents of.”

“Organic chemistry isn’t bad in itself”, Morgan continues. “I appreciate how logical it is; I’m just not convinced having to learn dozens of reactions by heart will be particularly useful to us in the future. I’d prefer if we were approaching it from a less theoretical standpoint.”

“I have to agree with you on this, but I still don’t appreciate organic chemistry – period”, Claire sighs. “And now I remember that the exam is in, like, two weeks, and I wish I didn’t.”

“Okay, wait a second”, Alex suddenly says. “Since when do you two just… agree with each other? Scratch that – since when are you two civil with each other? You usually talk to each other as little as possible at lunch.” He gasps dramatically before asking: “Did someone kidnap Claire at the end of last week and replace her with a clone?”

“That is factually impossible”, Shaun points out without looking up from his book.

Morgan rolls her eyes at Alex. “You should consider majoring in dramatic arts. It’d fit you like a glove.”

“Do you want us all to switch career plans so you have less competition or am I missing something?” Claire asks, raising a challenging eyebrow and waiting to see whether Morgan will pretend not to remember telling her to become a psychologist the previous day.

“You’re assuming I consider Alex competition to begin with”, Morgan answers, smoothly dodging Claire’s hidden question.

Alex narrows his eyes at them both. “Okay, no, I don’t like this turn of events. So far, it was you two against each other, but right now it’s you two ganging up on me. I didn’t sign up for this. Someone bring back the original Claire.”

Claire shakes her head with barely-concealed amusement. “I wasn’t here because of a family emergency, not because I was kidnapped.”

“Then I hope everything’s okay now”, Alex says sincerely.

“It should be, actually”, Claire replies, unable to keep from glancing at Morgan as she does so.

If Alex notices it, and she’s pretty sure he does, he smartly chooses not to comment on it.

“Good. Because it’s just not the same without you here.”

Morgan scoffs at him. “Suck-up.”

“Nope, that’s strictly your thing with our professors and you can keep it. Don’t confuse everything”, he replies without missing a beat. “I’m just being honest.”

“I would like to concentrate”, Shaun reminds them, slightly annoyed.

“Sorry”, Claire says. “The kids just won’t behave.”

Her cheeky comment earns her affronted looks from both Morgan and Alex, equally as offended by something she said for once, and… and yeah, okay, she could get used to this. If this is the dynamic they’re moving towards, she finds very little to complain about.

But she needs to know if this is going to be permanent; if it’s going to be more than a one-time thing or if Morgan will go back to antagonizing her for the sake of it as quickly as she tried to the previous day, before Claire called her out on it. She needs to know where she stands.

Her eyes find Morgan’s and their gazes lock, long enough for them to have a silent exchange – one that they both want to keep Alex and Shaun out of. It lasts maybe a few seconds at most and it’s full of uncertainty – not to mention a non-negligeable dose of wariness – but, by the time lunch is over, Claire has been able to reach two conclusions.

One, they have some sort of truce going on between them now.

Two, teaming up with Morgan to be a pain in Alex’s ass is her new favorite thing.

(Three?

Maybe she doesn’t dislike Morgan like she thought she did after all.)

Falling into a new rhythm, new habits, with Morgan, happens much quicker than Claire thought it would. By the end of the week, there’s absolutely no trace left of the weird feeling that surrounded them on Sunday; they do test where their new boundaries stand a few times, even though neither of them acknowledges the push and pull as it happens, but the shift still happens smoothly, with very little awkwardness overall.

It’s actually so easy that, at some point, Claire downright catches herself wondering if they could have gotten along from the start, had they met a different way that fateful third day of med school; the thought startles her, but she dismisses is almost immediately. Even if their meeting had gone differently, Morgan’s air of superiority coupled with her emotionally aloof behavior would still have grated on Claire’s nerves from the start.

They needed to spend time with each other to learn to tolerate each other, irregardless of what the context of their first meeting might have been. Their personality made that whole process unavoidable; that much, Claire is almost entirely sure of. But now that they’re both at a point where they’re willing to put their pride and stubbornness aside, it feels almost… effortless to do so. Like something clicked into place and made things… maybe not right, but still more right than they were before. Less tiring. More obvious. It’s as if they were always heading to that new dynamic, whether they knew it beforehand or not. (Claire certainly didn’t.)

And she’s not quite sure what triggered the shift on Morgan’s end, whether it was her sort of peace offering on Sunday that had the desired effect or if Morgan’s softening can rather be attributed to learning more about her after her breakdown on Friday, but the result in any case is that they both stop provoking each other any chance they get after Monday’s lunch break. It’s as if their teaming up against Alex was the last push they needed to seal the desire to change for both of them, by showing them what they could become if they just agreed to let go of their residual animosity rather than keep clinging on to it, and it worked wonders.

Of course, not everything changes. Morgan keeps being Morgan, competitive and arrogant and acerbic on her best days, but she also becomes less… abrasive, somehow. Or maybe it’s Claire who develops the ability to roll her eyes and ignore most of her comments, like Alex did almost from the start; or maybe it’s a mix of both, but what used to be endless arguments with both of them getting riled up in a second ends up morphing into a healthy dose of sassy banter instead.

And the sudden change must be obvious to everyone, because Lea confronts Claire about it as early as the next Monday.

Of course she does.

They’re at Shaun’s when it happens, and Claire already knows she’s not going to like whatever is about to happen when she sees Lea’s wide grin as the latter sits down on the couch next to her.

“Sooooooo”, Lea begins, dragging out the ‘o’ way longer than necessary. “You and Morgan seem to be getting along better, if my eyes didn’t deceive me last week.”

“Mmm-hmmm”, Claire replies non-committally. It’s not something she particularly wants to discuss at the moment, and with a nosy person such as Lea even less.

“So. What changed?”

Claire shrugs, hoping against hope that Lea will have learned to take a hint by now…

… And having, of course, no such luck.

“Does it have something to do with your mysterious emergency, like, two weeks ago? Because I noticed that’s when—”

“Lea?”

“Yeah?”

“If you don’t mind, I have an important exam coming up at the end of the week. And since I’m not the biggest fan of organic chemistry, I need to study extra-hard for this one.”

“I think Claire is asking you to leave us alone”, Shaun needlessly clarifies. “And I think you should leave us alone too. It’s easier to concentrate if you’re not here; your talking is distracting.”

“Hmm. You know what? Now that I think about it, I have a piece of code that is in dire need of refactoring, so – okay, I’ll leave you two to it. Have fun studying this horrible subject of yours!”

Claire vaguely notes that Lea gave up easily for once, although she’s always more willing to listen to Shaun than Claire when it comes to asking for silence, but the fleeting thought slips her mind not even two seconds later.

She cannot fail this exam and she really hates organic chemistry.

In hindsight, Claire really should have seen it coming.

Lea is not one to stop until she gets what she wants, that much has been made clear by now, and her quick surrendering on Monday was truly uncharacteristic to say the least. So it makes perfect sense, really, that she’d show up early on Wednesday just to sit down at their table at Chick ‘n’ Bread with the same gleeful grin that she wore when she started questioning Claire two days ago.

“So. How’s it going so far today?” she says in lieu of a traditional greeting. “Everything good?”

Morgan, once the initial moment of shock washes away, glares at her with animosity. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Oh, sorry. Am I intruding?” Lea asks, her shit-eating grin still firmly in place.

“What do you want?” Claire sighs, although she’s pretty sure this is a question she’d rather never know the answer to.

“Oh, come on. Did you really think I was going to give up that easily?”

“I foolishly hoped you had”, Claire mutters in response.

Morgan narrows her eyes at them both. “What is this about?”

“You two”, Lea answers, pointing at Claire then at Morgan a few times in quick succession, “are being almost friendly with each other now. After I saw you both bite the other’s head off every time you had to exchange more than ten words for, like, two months non-stop. You can’t blame a girl for being curious.”

“I fail to see how it concerns you in any way”, Morgan remarks coldly.

Claire sighs again, looking pointedly at Lea. “It doesn’t. But when has that ever stopped her before?”

“Never”, Lea answers, still smiling widely, although the question wasn’t directed at her. “Come on, don’t leave me hanging. One of you spill the tea – I don’t care who.”

“Either you leave, or I report you to your manager immediately”, Morgan orders.

Lea shrugs the threat away. “My shift starts in twenty minutes; for now, I’m just a regular customer like the two of you. I’m good.”

“Don’t you have anything better to do? Co-workers to go bore to death with stories no one cares about?”

The venomous iciness of Morgan’s voice takes Claire by surprise. In the span of little more than a week, she’d almost forgotten how hostile Morgan could get – despite having had comments as biting as this one directed at her countless times after they first met –, and it’s especially jarring now that she’s not on the receiving end of it. There’s nothing unusual about Morgan acting this way with Lea, since she never made any effort to hide how she feels about the bubbly girl, but this is the first time Claire knows she won’t have venom directed at her too if she attempts to take on the role of mediator. And she hasn’t yet become accustomed to that.

“You hurt my feelings”, Lea gasps as she brings a hand to her heart, although both Claire and Morgan take her as seriously as they were supposed to: not at all. “Am I supposed to cry?”

“No, just leave us alone”, Morgan insists, voice still as icy as it gets.

Claire decides to insert herself into the argument at this very moment. In another context, she might have enjoyed seeing Morgan get infuriated by Lea’s ability to stay unbothered and cheeky no matter what – she’s pretty sure she’ll never stop finding that entertaining, no matter how well she and Morgan end up getting along –, but the fact that the matter at hand involves her as well makes that a little more difficult. So she cuts it short.

“We had an actual conversation or two is what happened”, she explains. “It’s really that simple.”

Morgan gives her an affronted look. “Why are you encouraging her exactly? Do I need to remind you that it’s none of her business?!”

“Quite the opposite, actually”, Claire sighs. “You haven’t spent enough time with her to know how this is going to go but I have, so let me tell you something: either we actually answer now, or she’ll keep prodding until we finally cave in. I’m saving us both some trouble.”

“See? That wasn’t so hard”, Lea says happily, her grin widening if that was even possible. “Though I must say, I’m a little disappointed. I was hoping for a juicy story, but you two are apparently both terribly boring.”

“Excuse me?!” Morgan hisses.

Claire just rolls her eyes. “Sorry, but you won’t get your fix of gossip through us. Also, you’re really such a natural with compliments, it’s incredible.”

Lea shrugs in response, with a perfectly calculated mix of casual and playful that she still manages to make look natural somehow. “My bad!”

“You’re impossible”, Claire grumbles. “And now that you got what you wanted, we really need to finish putting the final touches to our gigantic project so that we can be done with it by the end of the week.”

“Sure! I’ll leave you two to it”, Lea chirps, immediately getting up from the chair she had commandeered as her own and walking towards the staff’s room to get ready for her shift. She turns around, though, right before reaching the point where her voice would get drowned out by the background music. “So… Just out of curiosity – on a scale of one to ten, how impatient are you to be done having to see each other almost every evening by the end of the week?”

She grins at them one more time before, uncharacteristically enough, resuming walking without waiting for an answer, and Claire is left with a feeling of shock when she realizes that this is not something she had thought about yet. The answer to Lea’s question immediately flashes through her mind, though, and it hits her like a ton of bricks, because…

Because she’s going to miss this.

And, as she registers a second later, she would have missed this even if things had stayed the way they were two weeks ago.

This is, by far, the thought that shocks her the most. Because, objectively speaking, it doesn’t make sense.

And yet…

Her nearly daily meet-ups with Morgan have become, without her really noticing, a part of her routine that she actually appreciates. Even when they were arguing most of the time, working together was already enjoyable, in a way – if only because they are both quick-witted and constantly challenging each other to do better, think faster, come up with more, consider another angle –, but now…

Now, Claire feels something akin to disappointment at the idea of spending her entire evenings studying at Shaun’s again like she did at the beginning of the year. She doesn’t mind, obviously, but their time together is different from what bouncing ideas off Morgan felt like almost from the start. It doesn’t have… It doesn’t have the same thrill.

A thrill that Claire didn’t even realize existed until right this second.

A thrill that, it turns out, she doesn’t want to let go of. Even if she’d never admit that to anyone, under any circumstance.

So, now? Now, Claire doesn’t dare look at Morgan for fear of reading something akin to relief on her face, because she suddenly becomes painfully aware that it’d feel like a rejection that would hurt her a lot more than it really has any right to. She was supposed to be happy once that project was done, damn it, not nostalgic; this turnaround is really not one she had anticipated. And she’s not quite sure how to process it, now that it’s slapped her square in her face.

Irritated with herself for somehow managing to end up in this situation, Claire shakes her head absent-mindedly and opens the book in front of her under the pretense of doing a last-minute check of a minor detail in their composition. Mostly, though, she uses that as an excuse while she attempts to clear her head, trying her absolute best to stop thinking about the fact that she’s going to miss working with Morgan freaking Reznick, but her endeavor is nothing if not wholly unsuccessful.

Wonderful.

Damn Lea and her awfully sagacious questions.

Chapter Text

The last week before winter break is a blur.

On Monday, Claire and Morgan hand out their project to Pr Melendez who takes it without a single comment, just a nod of the head, then Shaun and Jared do the exact same thing with the exact same result. According to Shaun, they did a good job with their topic – Claire has no doubt they did – and working Jared was fine enough that he wouldn’t mind doing it again if he had to. She’s relieved to hear that, since there are a few classes she doesn’t have in common with Shaun while Jared does; besides, even in the classes they all attend, him having two potential partners now is a good thing.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday alternate between lectures and exams, which Claire finds hard enough that she finishes them already anxious about midterms – even though they still have two more months before they need to worry about those. Friday, finally, is a normal day of lectures that ends with Pr Lim’s general anatomy class as usual.

Pr Lim who, apparently, decides that two hours before the holidays start is the perfect time to tell her students about a project they’ll have to do for the end of the semester.

“I have a list of topics here”, she announces at the beginning of the class. “They’re all very short, just the name of a part of the human body that we’ve already studied. I’ll assign them in numerical order: the first people to come to me will get the first one, the second group will get the second one, and so on. The beginning of the list is not easier than the rest, or harder for that matter; I’m only using this system so my topics will get assigned randomly. As far as groups go, I’ll accept pairs or triads, but that’s it – no exceptions, no matter the reason. Groups of four are forbidden, as is working on your own. You’ll have to prepare a half-hour-long presentation for your classmates to expand on what we’ve covered in class; there will be two days dedicated to those presentations at the end of the semester. Any questions?”

A student raises his hand.

“Yes?”

“When do the groups need to come to you to get their topics?”

“Either at the end of this class or at the end of the first one after the holidays. Anything else?”

Claire only half-listens to the few more questions that get asked, too busy dealing with her own thoughts – or, more specifically, with one specific thought. Namely, that Shaun is not in this class, since he’s already taking more advanced and detailed ones that are usually attended by second-year students only… but Morgan is.

And, if she’d been told at the beginning of the year that she’d seriously be considering pairing up with Morgan again but of her own volition this time, Claire would have laughed in the face of whoever would have been foolish enough to reveal that to her. Except… except it’s exactly what’s happening.

She turns her head to the side to search for Morgan, who’s usually sitting in the front row like Claire herself, and finds her just in time to see her turning her head to look at her as well. Morgan’s face morphs into one of surprise when they eyes meet while Claire feels her cheeks heat up slightly, since she wasn’t planning on getting caught as she stared at Morgan to figure out if suggesting they work together again was a good idea or not, and she really hopes her blush is too faint to be noticeable from a few seats over.

“I expect silence during my classes”, Pr Lim curtly reminds the students once she’s done answering questions. “Chatter is unwelcome – even if the holidays are nearly there, and even if you want to start figuring out who you’ll partner with. I won’t repeat myself.”

Claire, who was opening her mouth to speak, clamps it back shut immediately. She’s relieved, in a way, because it means she now has until the end of the class to figure out what the hell she’s going to say to Morgan – what words won’t make her look like a complete fool if what she gets in the end is a firm rejection? Is it a good idea to even ask in the first place? What if they work together, but this project goes awry and breaks the fragile balance they recently found?

She’s still trying to push these questions away so she can focus on what Pr Lim is saying when her phone vibrates in the pocket of her coat. Getting messages during the day is so rare for her that she’s made it a habit to check them when she does, just in case it’s an emergency, but she was not prepared for reading ‘New message from: Bane of my existence, kind of’ when she discreetly pulls her phone out of her pocket. That’s how she named Morgan in her phone when she got her number along with New Beginnings’ address and contact information, and she never changed it since then – after all, they never messaged each other again since Claire confirmed they could work together that Sunday and Morgan answered a simple ‘I’ll be there’.

She’s so shocked she just stares at her phone’s screen for a few seconds without moving an inch, but then curiosity takes over and she quickly opens the message while silently hoping it won’t be something along the lines of ‘I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but NO WAY’.

Bane of my existence, kind of: Believe me when I tell you I’m the last person who ever expected to ask you this, but would it be possible for us to work together again? Maybe with Alex as well, but I don’t know anyone else in this class and I’d rather not pair up with him only… He’s nice but far from being as conscientious as you and me, and I don’t want to end up doing more than my fair share of work because of that.

Claire has to fight really hard not to break into a smile when she reads Morgan’s text, for a reason that she’s not entirely sure she could explain if she had to. Maybe it’s the fact that Morgan texts in such a formal way? Her heart is also beating a little too fast, but she blames that on relief that they’re on the same wavelength and scolds herself for caring so much in the first place. (Also for forgetting Alex’s presence in this class altogether, while Morgan’s was her number one thought.) To think that, last month, she would have sworn she’d give anything to be freed from having to work with Morgan ever again…

Careful not to be caught by Pr Lim, she quickly sends three texts back.

This is what you get for thinking the others are beneath you and keeping to yourself since the beginning of the year :)

Also the answer is yes

Ask Alex if he wants in

She lets her phone slide back into her pocket and focuses on taking notes again, but she still glances to Morgan a few times to see what her reaction to the first text will be. And, sure enough, ten seconds later, she has to stifle a laugh at the sight of the major eye roll Morgan doesn’t bother to hold back. The pointed glare that follows amuses her to no end, and Claire shrugs innocently in response. She didn’t do anything, after all, besides telling the truth.

Another eye roll later, they both go back to furiously scribbling down as much of what Pr Lim is saying as humanly possible, so Claire is surprised when her phone vibrates again a few minutes later.

Alex: is Morgan pranking me or are you two seriously going to do this project together as well?????

Alex: if it’s true, i want nothing to do with this

Alex: i value my life, thank you very much

Alex: also what the fuck

She sends back a short “not a prank” that’ll convey everything well enough, then decides not to touch her phone again until the end of the class even if she gets another message by then. (She doesn’t.)

When Pr Lim finally stops talking, thus signaling the beginning of winter break, a few students immediately rush to the front to give her their names and get the topic for their group, but most others leave the amphitheater without wasting a second. Morgan and Claire hang back in silence, side by side, waiting for those in an obvious hurry to talk to Pr Lim first.

When they finally step forward, they’re the only ones left in the whole amphitheater. Pr Lim watches them walk to her desk with eyebrows flying up towards her hairline and a genuinely shocked expression, but she still refrains from making any sort of comment about their decision to voluntarily partner up for this project.

“Topic number eight”, she tells them. “Cranial nerves. Anyone else in your group, or just you two?”

“Just us”, Claire answers with a small smile.

“Noted. Now have a nice winter break and come back well-rested, alright?”

“We’ll do our best”, Morgan promises.

They leave the amphitheater side by side, in silence again, but stop dead in their tracks at the same time when they see Alex waiting for them right outside the door.

“So this really wasn’t a prank.”

Claire stares at him with eyes that scream ‘really?!’. “Yeah. I recall telling you that already.”

“True, but it didn’t mean I actually believed you”, Alex admits with a shrug. “I thought you two would be delighted to be freed from your biochemistry project, but you jump on the first occasion to work together again? Someone make it make sense.”

“Did no one ever tell you that only fools never change their minds?” Claire replies.

“Don’t you have a plane to catch?” Morgan adds. “Though if you ask me, there’s no way spending Christmas with your ex-wife will be anything but awkward.”

“You told me that, like, three times already”, Alex reminds her with an exasperated eye roll. “And again, having a five-year-old boy who pretty much never sees you in the first place means that, sometimes, you have to deal with awkward situations for his sake even though you’re absolutely not looking forward to them. Also, for the record, I only leave tomorrow morning. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t make myself late – not even to crack the mystery of you two.”

Claire huffs. “First Lea, now you. There’s no mystery! We just figured out we actually do work well together… and we can even get along if we put in some effort. That’s it.”

“Yeah, well, nobody saw it coming”, Alex mutters in response.

“Not even us”, Claire says truthfully. “Anyway, I’d like to celebrate the beginning of winter break by crashing down into my bed and sleeping instead of revising for once, so I’m gonna go now.”

Morgan nods tiredly. “Me too. See you in two weeks, Alex.”

They leave together, since they’re going in the same direction while Alex is heading the opposite way, and Claire is surprised when Morgan breaks the silence between them this time.

“Since you’re not religious, do you celebrate Christmas?”

This is the first time they come even close to acknowledging that the conversations they had the week Breeze showed up really did happen, and Claire doesn’t quite know what to think about the fact that Morgan chose to do that now.

“Kind of?” she answers, a bit wary. “I mean, we celebrated it out of tradition whenever my mom managed to remember the date and be lucid that day, but that’s all. And now that I’m going to spend the holidays alone anyway, since all of my roommates have someone to spend it with – whether their families or their boyfriends –, I don’t really see the point. You?”

Morgan looks startled, as if she didn’t expect the question to be thrown back to her. “Every year since I was born. But I’ll be here alone too, so not this year either. Do you know how your mom is doing?”

Something feels off in this conversation, but Claire can’t quite put her finger on what just yet. So she keeps answering instead, hoping she’ll figure out why they’re discussing this now in the process.

“I get about biweekly news of her, with some photos and videos from time to time as well.” Claire lets out a half-amused puff of air and adds: “She charmed the entire staff in addition to all the other residents with her singing, apparently, and somehow that does not surprise me in the slightest. It probably has something to do with the fact that I saw her get herself out of trouble like that so many times over the years.”

“Is her voice really that good?”

“Yeah, actually. She could have made something out of it, if only she’d bothered to try more than two days at a time”, Claire answers bitterly.

“Maybe she’ll be trying now”, Morgan says softly.

“Yeah, well – I’ll believe it when I see it”, Claire scoffs, voice laced with resentment. 

It feels good to talk about her mother out loud like that, even just to voice her doubts about Breeze’s commitment to getting better this time. Sharing lightens the burden she wears every day, and the fact that the only one she’s willing to open up to about this is Morgan still hasn’t stopped feeling surreal – even three weeks after the first time it happened.

They walk the rest of the way in silence, until they reach Claire’s bus stop where their paths will diverge. Morgan’s apartment is directly on campus and so she can get there on foot, while Claire would need almost an hour to walk all the way to her place if the bus were not to show up.

“Happy Holidays and, well, Merry Christmas even though you won’t celebrate it this year”, Claire says just before they’re about to part ways.

“Happy Holidays to you too”, Morgan replies. “I just hope it won’t feel too strange to be alone in your big apartment for two weeks.”

And there it is again – the distinct sense that something is not quite right, even though Claire still couldn’t explain why.

“At least I’ll have some peace and quiet for a change”, she mumbles, more focused on trying to figure out what she’s missing than on answering properly. “You don’t know how lucky you are to live alo—” Oh. On second thought, Claire thinks she knows what’s been hidden in this conversation from the start. “Morgan, have you ever spent the holidays alone before?”

There’s a second during which Morgan looks like a deer caught in headlights, and then it vanishes as quickly as it appeared.

“The summer holidays right after I moved here, before med school started a few months ago.”

Claire takes a deep breath, then purposely decides to push the matter. “Were you lonely?”

Morgan glares at her, then echoes Claire’s words to dismiss the question. “At least I had some peace and quiet for a change.”

“Are you looking forward to more peace and quiet?”

“Why do you act as if you want me to answer no?” Morgan shoots back, more defensive than Claire has seen her be in a while. “Will it make you feel better if both of us are wallowing in misery?”

The bus arrives at this very moment, preventing Claire from answering the way she’d have wanted to. Because she knows what Morgan is doing right now – instead of admitting to what she probably considers a weakness, she’s hiding by trying to flip the situation and make it sound like Claire is the one who doesn’t want to be alone for two whole weeks. And being an asshole about it as a defense mechanism, of course.

“I’ll be fine”, Claire says while the bus doors open. Looking Morgan straight in the eyes, she simply adds “Will you?” before turning around and stepping into the vehicle.

She never gets an answer; but when the bus drives away, Morgan still hasn’t moved from the spot she’d been rooted to for the past five minutes.

Claire’s phone rings on December 24th, somewhere around 2pm. It would be unusual in itself, since she doesn’t really have someone who would have a good reason to call her during the winter holidays in the first place, but the caller ID she sees when she glances at the screen really is the last person she would have expected.

Morgan.

Or, more specifically, Former bane of my existence.

(She changed Morgan’s contact information once she came back to her place, that last Friday before the holidays started. The old one didn’t seem fitting anymore, but she still wanted to keep the spirit of it.)

Claire picks up the phone on the last ring. “Hi?” she asks, a little bit unsure.

“So maybe you were right”, is what Morgan answers on the other end of the line.

Perplexed, Claire frowns before answering. “Sure, but uh… I’m going to need some context here?”

There’s a huff, very audible through the phone, and Claire can just picture Morgan’s face as clearly as if they were standing in front of each other. Her ‘please do not make me elaborate, I don’t actually want to say it’ face. It makes Claire’s lips quirk up a little.

“I’m not used to spending the holidays alone.”

Oh, so that’s what this is all about. She should have known, in retrospect, considering how they parted ways a few days ago.

“And?” Claire pushes, unwilling to let Morgan get away with half-truths by filling in the blanks for her, even though she can guess where this is heading. “You’re calling me because?”

New huff, more annoyed this time. “Do you want me to spell it out for you? Pretending to be dense isn’t a good look on you.”

“You do realize that insulting people is going to have the opposite effect of what you’re aiming for, which is making them want to help you out, right?”

There’s silence on the other end of the line for several seconds; long enough that Claire takes her phone away from her ear to check if the call has been disconnected – it hasn’t.

“Morgan?”

Still no answer.

“I’m going to hang up”, Claire warns.

“Don’t! I— I’m still here. But I… I don’t exactly know how to do this, okay?”

That confuses Claire. “Do what?”

Silence again, then: “Ask for help.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah”, Morgan answers through gritted teeth. “So?”

“So I still don’t know where this is going”, Claire points out.

“Oh, come on!” Claire hears Morgan take a deep breath, then let out in little more than a murmur: “Would you be willing to come spend Christmas Eve with me?”

Claire knew the question was coming, and yet somehow it still takes her by surprise – that Morgan would call her, of all people, for something like that. Then again, she supposes that Morgan doesn’t really have anyone else to call, considering that Alex is a little busy – not to mention halfway across the state – at the moment.

She still can’t help but put Morgan through a little teasing, just to make sure she’s not agreeing right away. (She ignores how eager she actually is to say yes, because it makes no sense.)

“Do you miss me that much?”

“Claire, I swear, if you make fun of me for what I just asked, I will make your life hell from now on.”

“You tried that already for, like, two months”, Claire reminds her, “and yet here we are. Also, what did I just say about being nice to people to make them want to help you?”

“I hate you.”

A few weeks ago, Claire would have believed that in a heartbeat. She’d also have sworn that the feeling was mutual, but now… Now, it just makes her shake her head almost fondly. Thankfully, Morgan can’t see that.

“No you don’t”, she says confidently. “Or else we wouldn’t be having that conversation. Okay, yes, fine, I’ll come. Just text me your address and when I should arrive at your place, alright?”

“Okay.”

“Morgan?”

“Hmm?”

“There’s nothing wrong about asking for help from time to time. Even from your former arch nemesis.”

“Former?” Morgan repeats, but there’s humor in her voice this time. Claire is a hundred percent sure that’s just because Morgan wants to derail her train of thought from the first part of her answer, but she lets it slide this time.

“Don’t make me regret saying yes.”

“I should probably hang up, then.”

“That sounds like a good idea, unless you want me to end up changing my mind soon.”

“I know you wouldn’t actually do that”, Morgan replies, a little too quickly. “You’re Saint Claire, after all; I’ve never seen you resist the urge to help someone. Even me, apparently. Anyway, I’ll text you my address in a minute. I’ll see you tonight!”

The line goes dead a second later and Claire doesn’t move for a moment, slightly incredulous, but she just shakes her head and chuckles quietly once she realizes that expecting Morgan to end this conversation any other way would have been ridiculous.

Letting her phone fall back down on her bed, Claire buries her head in a pillow and wonders what the hell she just got herself into, but it’s a little too late to worry about that once she’s already agreed to it. Now…

Now, she just needs to get ready for a Christmas that she hadn’t planned to celebrate at all. With Morgan freaking Reznick.

Oh, how the tables have turned.

Chapter Text

Claire takes forever to decide which outfit she’ll wear. She has no idea how Morgan will dress and doesn’t want to feel weird or like she’s making a fool out of herself by asking, so she just stares at the clothes in her closet while mentally debating the pros and cons of different outfits for long enough that she starts to feel ridiculous about it. Eventually, after trying on several of those outfits – too many to ever admit –, she settles on a simple yet intricate green dress that falls somewhere in between the casual and dressed up categories, and she does her make-up accordingly. (She just hopes Morgan won’t open the door in a T-shirt and jeans. Because then she’d feel really out of place.)

She leaves her apartment with more than enough time to spare, takes her usual bus that gets her within a five-minute walk of Morgan’s apartment, and paces for five more minutes once she actually gets there before she finally talks herself into knocking.

She’s feeling a little anxious about it, but she doesn’t even understand why. The fear of being overdressed, sure, the inability to prepare for what is entirely uncharted territory, that too, but… it’s Morgan she’s about to spend the evening with. It’s just Morgan. And since when does she care what Morgan thinks of her in the first place anyway?

She doesn’t even know what they’re going to do exactly. Talk? Watch a movie? Nothing in that list seems like something Morgan would particularly enjoy, to be honest, and—

And the door opens, and Claire loses her train of thought entirely.

Morgan is dressed in a close-fitting red dress that Claire can’t quite tear her eyes away from for long enough that she actually starts to feel like a creep, her hair is up in a purposely messy bun that must have taken forever to get right, and holy hell Claire is going to need a second.

“You look—” She holds back the ‘gorgeous’ that threaten to fall from her lips just in time, and saves it with a much safer “nice. You look really nice.”

“I wasn’t sure what you’d wear”, Morgan answers, looking as unsettled as Claire felt before the door opened even though she’s obviously trying her best to mask it. “But this is Christmas Eve, after all, so…”

“Yeah. I, uh— I had the same kind of dilemma. Glad to find out I’m not overdressed”, Claire manages to breathe out while she scrambles to reboot her brain as quickly as humanly possible.

And she really needs to snap herself out of it because she’s gaping and staring and she can feel herself both gape and stare, but it’s not as easy as she wishes it were. Mainly due to the fact that she was just hit with the realization that Morgan is beautiful in the most brutal and unexpected way possible, and she’s not quite sure how to process that information just yet. It had never occurred to her until now, probably due to the fact that she didn’t see Morgan as anything other than a pain in her ass for a long time and then never really had a reason to truly look at her, but now she has and wow—

Morgan might be Morgan, but Claire is also a bisexual lady with eyes and right now Morgan is sincerely gorgeous.

“Well, come in”, Morgan says after a few seconds of silence during which they do nothing but stare at each other. “And you… You look really good too, by the way.”

“Thank you”, Claire mumbles, ducking her head down in hopes it’ll hide the warmth she can feel spreading across her cheeks at the compliment for a reason she couldn’t pinpoint.

What finally manages to knock some sense back into her is the sight of Morgan’s apartment – or rather, the size of Morgan’s apartment. There’s only one room beside the bathroom, with the kitchen, a desk and the bed all within ten steps of each other, and it makes absolutely no sense that this is where they’re supposed to spend Christmas Eve together.

Claire chuckles incredulously. “You do realize that I live in an apartment big enough to accommodate four roommates – none of which are there for the holidays –, right? How did it seem logical to you to decide to make us try to fit into, what, two hundred square feet at best instead?”

Morgan rolls her eyes and glares at her half-heartedly but doesn’t actually answer, and that acts as a welcome reminder to Claire that this is Morgan in front of her and not just a ridiculously pretty woman. It’s the perfect reaction to allow her to finish piecing her brain back together.

“Okay, change of plans – we’re going to my place. We’re not spending our evening stepping on each other’s toes without a good reason, and I don’t see one. Come on”, she says, turning on her heel.

She stops at the door when she realizes that Morgan hasn’t moved an inch. She’s about to urge her to follow and not be ridiculous, but something about the look on Morgan’s face stops her and makes her consider the situation through another angle instead. Because she’s not at all used to seeing Morgan, well… insecure would be the best word, despite the latter’s obvious attempts to hide it, and that gives Claire pause.

Morgan is usually, to put it bluntly, the head bitch in charge. She doesn’t show weakness. She doesn’t admit she needs anything from others. She’s closed-off, sarcastic, and determined to keep others at arm’s length.

And yet here they are tonight.

And Claire might have an idea what’s going on.

“This is your comfort zone, isn’t it?” she asks softly.

Morgan’s eyes flash with surprise before they switch to a murderous glare, but Claire doesn’t pay attention to that. She pays attention to the fact that she’s onto something.

“You’ve seen my apartment; you knew we’d have room there, but you didn’t even suggest it”, she continues slowly.

“I think I was imposing enough as it is”, Morgan retorts icily. “That said – if all of this is bothering you so much, you can just go and be done with it.”

Claire shakes her head as an automatic response to the offer to bail. She won’t take it, whether at this moment or later; she intends to see this evening through now, even if that means ruffling some feathers in the process. She has no idea what made Morgan so wary of everyone and everything in the first place, but she decides right then and there that she’ll do her best to help her overcome that. Whether or not she ever ends up learning what actually caused all this trauma.

Maybe it’s because she sees in Morgan what she could have become if her mom had fully succeeded in destroying her spirit. Maybe it’s because she’s always had a bit of a savior complex – then again, she supposes that most people who plan on studying for years and years to become a surgeon do as well. Or maybe it’s because she’s come to care about Morgan a little too much over the weeks, because that’s also a thing that happened. But in the end, it doesn’t really matter why she’s deliberately choosing to help her; all that matter is that she does.

“You need to stop doing that”, Claire says softly, taking a few careful steps forward so she can come face to face with Morgan again. “You need to stop pushing people away the first chance you get – you need to stop pushing me away. I won’t let you; not anymore.”

Morgan is looking at her like she’s halfway to throwing her out and halfway to tears, but she doesn’t say anything. Claire suspects she might have no idea what she could even say right now.

“This is your comfort zone, I get that. But I don’t think your comfort zone is big enough to accommodate the both of us, to be perfectly honest, so—” Claire stops abruptly, distracted by her own thoughts, and suddenly changes her entire approach. “Do you trust me?”

Trapped between the wall two steps behind her and Claire a step in front of her, Morgan has no way to move away from the situation even though it’s clear she’s want to, so she ends up closing her eyes to avoid having to look at Claire any longer instead.

They stay like that, standing still in front of each other with their breaths the only sound in the room, until Claire repeats in a whisper: “Morgan, do you trust me?”

She has to remind herself over and over again that Morgan doesn’t like being touched to refrain from reaching out physically in some way. It goes against every instinct in her, but she refuses to cross a boundary that she fears would make Morgan close off for good considering how much she’s already pushing right now. Instead, she fidgets with her coat – that she’s been holding on her arm since she took it off while she was pacing earlier – and tries to figure out how much more Morgan will agree to take before she snaps in some way.

Eventually, though, she does get an answer.

“I don’t not trust you”, Morgan admits reluctantly, opening her eyes but still averting them from Claire’s gaze. She looks so obviously uncomfortable, like she’s desperately trying to find a way to run away somehow even though there isn’t one.

“Okay, I’ll take that”, Claire says with humor, hoping to lighten the atmosphere a little. “So here’s what we’re going to do: we’re going to get out of that apartment and back to mine, where there’s even a little Christmas tree in the corner of the living room, and then we’re going to put our brains on hold so we can spend a nice evening not thinking about anything even remotely serious – I think we deserve as much after surviving the first four months of med school. Okay?”

During the umpteenth silence that follows, Morgan’s expression slowly goes back from uncomfortable to hardened, until, by the end of that process, her eyes are steely as she meets Claire’s again.

“Fine. I’ll follow you, if only so I don’t have to hear you whining about the size of my apartment all night – it may be small, but I live alone, at least. You can wait for me outside while I prepare what I need to take with me.”

Claire doesn’t move.

“What now?”

“I’m not going to be your punching bag”, Claire says firmly. “I have too much self-respect for that. We spent two months at each other’s throats and that was fine, we were on the same page, but if we’re going to have a relationship a little bit closer than that, this is not how it’s going to go.” She takes a deep breath and continues: “I’d like to be your friend, Morgan, if only you’d let me, but friend doesn’t mean shutting up and taking it every time you lash out at me because you’re uncomfortable. I’m not going to put up with that. Are we clear on this?”

Morgan deflates slightly. “I already told you, I don’t know how to…” She waves a hand around. “… do this.”

“So I’ve gathered”, Claire replies with a nod. She softens a bit, the hint of a smile tugging at her lips, before adding: “But I think – if you use ‘don’t be a bitch or try to hurt people on purpose’ as your first guideline, that’ll be more than fine enough for now. You know, just an idea. Anyway, I’ll wait for you in the corridor; pack whatever you need and meet me there.”

She turns around and walks back out the door before Morgan can answer anything, intent on giving her time to think this through, then paces up and down the length of the corridor again – the same way she already did before she knocked something like five minutes ago (an eternity ago).

When Morgan finally gets out of her apartment with a coat on and a backpack on her shoulders, she seems to have fully regained control of her emotions. “I’m ready”, she simply says.

It’s clear, though, that she means more than ready to go. She’s also implying that she’s ready to do this – whatever this is; however the weird kind of relationship they have now could be described because friendship doesn’t really seem to be a label that truly fits at this point. She’s ready.

And Claire was already ready for it; long before she even realized she was.

They get out of the building in a comfortable silence.

They order takeout. Morgan, who is a self-admitted terrible cook, had planned for them to do just that anyway, and since the only things ready to eat in Claire’s apartment are some leftovers in the fridge, it’s very much a no-brainer. They sit on the couch while they wait for their order to arrive, both apparently exactly as unsure of how the evening is supposed to go, until Claire clears her throat and tries to dissipate the cloud of awkwardness that has settled around them.

“So… What do you usually do on Christmas Eve?”

Morgan returns her a tight smile. “Long, boring dinner with my extended family. The food was generally good, at least.”

“Oh. Is that why you decided not to attend this year? You’re trying to save yourself from that extended family?”

“No”, Morgan answers shortly.

Claire adds Christmas family dinners to the list of topics Morgan is touchy about. She wonders if all of them are connected, somehow, but she has no way to get an answer to that question without being direct about it – and she has a good idea by now of how well that would go.

“Okay, look – if we’re going to spend the evening together, we need to do something other than sit in silence on this couch. Help me out here a little!” she exclaims instead.

The truth is, they don’t really know each other despite how much time they spent together since the beginning of the year; all they ever talk about is school, with Claire’s breakdown about her mother the only notable exception. And they’re certainly not going to be talking about school on Christmas Eve. Not on her watch.

“I— I don’t know. I didn’t really… think that far ahead when I invited you”, Morgan admits, fidgeting with the hem of her dress.

“Well, we’re off to a great start”, Claire remarks. “Then how about this: we tell each other random facts about ourselves until our food gets here. So we know a little bit more about each other, at least.”

“I’m not so sure about this”, Morgan replies warily.

“Perfect! I’ll start. When I was a kid, a stray dog followed me home once. My mom wasn’t there and didn’t come back for half a week, so I let him stay and he kept me company. I named him Bandit because he liked to steal my stuff and made me run after him to get it back.”

“What happened to him?”

“My mom threw him out when she came back. She barely cared to find the money to feed me, so she clearly didn’t want to add a dog on top of that.” At the strange look on Morgan’s face, Claire shrugs. “I spent my childhood in a trailer with an abusive mother. I don’t exactly have many amusing facts to tell.”

“And the dog never tried to come back?”

“Oh, he did, once or twice. Until my mom caught him trying to sneak in and kicked him out. Literally.”

“I’d have bit her if I was that dog”, Morgan mutters.

Claire lets out a short laugh. “Yeah. Me too. I screamed at her to stop but all that ended up doing was getting me slapped as well.”

“I’m starting to get why you’d rather never see her again”, Morgan says slowly.

Claire chuckles humorlessly. “Oh, that was nothing. I distinctly remember telling you that she tried to kill me multiple times in my life already.”

“You also said it was in the middle of psychotic breaks”, Morgan reminds her. “I guess I just didn’t realize she was also a terrible person outside of her mental disorder.”

“I’d make you a list of stuff she said to me or did to me over the years, but that’s not exactly what I want to talk about on Christmas Eve”, Claire grumbles. “This was supposed to be a somewhat light-hearted exchange, in my mind. Anyway, your turn.”

“I—” Morgan starts, but she cuts herself off immediately and goes deep in thought instead. After a while, she comes up with: “Archery was my passion as a kid. I practiced every day for seven years and then a few times a week all the way until the end of high school, but this year I decided it was time to grow up.” Almost as an afterthought, she adds: “I don’t think I’d have time for it right now anyway.”

Claire frowns, unable to understand why Morgan would give up something that obviously meant so much to her. “Well, that’s stupid.”

“Fuck off!” Morgan shoots right back, glaring at Claire angrily.

“No, not— Not archery! That you’d stop just because you think it shouldn’t have a space in your life as a grown-up. This is what I find stupid. If you’re good at something – no, scratch that: if you love something; it shouldn’t matter whether you’re good at it or not –, why would you give it up? Sure, we have little to no free time, but you could practice only once a week instead of several times! Or you could at least start again in a few years! Why would you purposely stay away from your passion? From something that brings you joy?”

“It’s a little bit more complicated than that”, Morgan mutters, half-shrugging in a dismissive way.

Claire chooses to push anyway. “Okay, then what?”

Morgan turns her head away and stays resolutely mute, so Claire sighs tiredly.

“Look, I get that you’re a private person. I do. But I’m trying my best and at some point it will have to go both ways.”

“It’s not—” Morgan looks frustrated now but also uncomfortable, and Claire is really starting to wonder what happened to her to make her uncomfortable about so many things. “I kind of… lost my love for it a little. So I’d rather stay away from my bow for the time being.”

“That makes more sense”, Claire says, nodding. “But… if I ask you what made you lose some of your love for your biggest passion, I’m guessing I won’t get an answer?”

“Now you’re starting to get it”, Morgan says in lieu of a proper response. Her tone is aiming for teasing, but it just comes off as a hidden plea to leave this topic alone.

Claire’s phone chimes at that moment, efficiently distracting them both as she grabs it to look at the notification. It’s a message from the owners of New Beginnings, with an attached video that she opens without a second thought. What immediately appears on her screen is her mother, singing Christmas carols to an assembly of other residents, and obviously enjoying herself immensely. A caption also reads:

This is just an excerpt, but we recorded the whole thing. (Believe it or not, she organized an entire concert!) It lasted over an hour and all the other residents absolutely loved it. We hadn’t seen everyone so happy in a long time.

“She really does have a beautiful voice”, Morgan remarks quietly.

“Yeah”, Claire replies absent-mindedly. A part of her is glad Breeze is doing so well, but another, bigger part of her is just bitter, because her mom was usually too wasted on Christmas to bother singing to her. Truth be told, she never knows how to feel when she gets news about Breeze; it’s still all too jumbled up in her head for her to pick apart her emotions.

She doesn’t even know if she wants to ever see her mother again once Breeze gets out of New Beginnings. Could she move past what the first eighteen years of her life were like? Does she even want to? Would it be worth more than what it’d cost her?

Before she can chicken out, she sends a text back asking if they could put Breeze on the phone for five minutes. There’s a question she needs to get an answer to; one she’s been avoiding even thinking about it since her mother showed up in San José, except now the video just made it come back in full force and she needs to get it out before she talks herself out of it for the millionth time.

The phone rings only a few seconds later, thankfully.

“Claire! Hi baby, how are you?” Breeze asks, obviously stunned but delighted to get to talk to her daughter.

“Why now?” Claire asks angrily, not bothering with pleasantries at all. “Eighteen years of living with you and dealing with your shit, but you somehow decide to get your life together the year I could finally leave?! What the fuck, mom?! Why couldn’t you do that before, when I actually needed you to?!”

There’s a small sound of surprise on the other end of the line but no actual response at first, until Breeze sighs and tries to explain what’s been going on as best as she can.

“I know I’ve been terrible to you. We have a lot of therapy sessions here, and I’ve had to confront… well, a lot of things about myself – most of them, let me tell you, quite unpleasant. It’s… It’s a long story; I don’t think now is the time for that. But I— When you left, I realized I was alone. I had no one. And I think I had… I had somehow assumed you’d always be there? But suddenly there was just me and my thoughts, and I kind of spiraled down. So I got kicked out of the apartment. And I couldn’t go back to our old trailer since I’d sold it when we’d miraculously gotten that apartment two years ago, so I just… I did the only thing I could think of, which was go after you. I did miss you, as I told you, but I’m not so sure I missed you so much as I missed having someone to take out my issues on at this point. It’s so horrible to say, I know, but it’s what happened.”

Breeze takes a few deep breaths before she resumes, obviously trying to get herself to power through this.

“And when I realized— When you told me that you’d rather never see me again, that you wanted me out of your life forever, it was a slap. I was off my meds, as you know, so I didn’t quite process it properly at first, but it still got to me, and that’s… That’s why I chose to stay here. I’m not sure I actually answered your question, but, Claire… I think the only good answer I have for you is that I hadn’t gotten my wake-up call yet. And I know— Baby, I know it’s messed up my wake-up call was you telling me to get out of your life, but it’s what happened. And I’m not sure I’d be anywhere right now without the people here. I’m not strong enough to do this on my own, as you saw ever since you were little, but I’m… I’m trying now. I’m really trying, and I want you to know that. I’m sorry it’s eighteen years too late, but I’m trying. And it looks like I’m getting somewhere, if you uh, if you can believe that!” She pauses, then adds: “Also, since I’ve had to look back at my life a lot, I just want to say… Well, I guess the only thing I can say is that I’m sorry. I’m sorry I put you through so much shit for so long. I know that apology was long overdue and it’s not enough, but it’s all I have for now. I hope you can forgive me one day.”

“Thank you for saying that”, Claire answers, voice breaking in the middle of the sentence. There’s a lot she’s going to have to unpack in her mom’s entire speech, but at the moment it just feels good to hear this heartfelt apology she’d never gotten before. It certainly makes for a memorable Christmas Eve, especially compared to some that were rather spent hearing Breeze call her a waste of space in the past. “I’m going to hang up now. Merry Christmas, mom.”

“Wait! Before you go, I— I just wanted to say—” Breeze takes a deep breath and gathers her thoughts. “It’s just, well— Even with everything I put you through, you made it to med school. You made it to med school all on your own! My baby is in med school; it’s so impressive! And I know you’re going to do great. You’re so much better than I ever was, and I’m so so glad you are. I wish I had even just half the strength that you have. So I guess I just… I just wanted to tell you I’m proud of you. I’m so incredibly proud of you. And I love you. And I hope you have the best Christmas ever, because you deserve it. That’s all.”

“Merry Christmas to you too, mom. Take care of yourself”, is all Claire manages to whisper before she hangs up the call and lets the phone fall to the couch next to her. She feels… both buzzing and empty, somehow. That was a lot.

“Are you okay?”

The sound of Morgan’s cautious and worried voice makes Claire outright jump. Truth be told, right from the moment she sent the text asking to speak to her mother, she’d stopped being fully aware of her surroundings. With the direct result that she had completely forgotten she wasn’t alone in her apartment.

She hastily wipes the few tears that have rolled down her cheeks and turns to look at Morgan while blinking away the ones that still threaten to spill out. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m just— She used to tell me she’d beat my ass if I upstaged her. Eighteen years, and I think today is the first time I’ve ever heard her say she’s proud of me.”

Her voice comes out strangled and she’s not entirely sure why she’s willing to confide that in Morgan, but something tells her it’s going to help her start to make sense of what just happened. She can’t just keep it all inside; it’d drive her crazy.

“Anyway”, she deflects, “why is our food taking so damn long to arrive? How many people order takeout on Christmas Eve?!”

“I’m guessing very few, so the restaurant probably doesn’t have many people on staff”, Morgan reasons logically.

She doesn’t push her to talk about her mother any further, but Claire can still see the way she looks at her – with soft, worried eyes and a small pained smile on her face. It’s comforting, in a way.

“I, uh… I brought some board games”, Morgan continues haltingly, fidgeting with the straps of her bag that she kept at her feet. “I wasn’t sure what else we could do, and it… it seemed like a good idea. If you want?”

It’s still so strange to see and hear Morgan lack confidence in any situation whatsoever, but also so logical in this case since Claire supposes this is her way of trying to be friendly… which seems to be something Morgan lacks experience with. The bright side is that they’ve moved past the utter refusal to be seen as even a little vulnerable and the constant defensiveness, apparently, and that’s undeniably progress.

“Sure”, Claire accepts easily. She wipes away the last tear that fell down her cheek as discreetly as possible and clears her throat to regain control of her voice, then looks down curiously at the boxes Morgan is pulling out of her bag. Some of the games she doesn’t know, but some others she’s already looking forward to – she hasn’t had the occasion to play them in quite a long time.

They’re setting up a game of Mastermind when their food finally arrives. Claire goes to the door to get the bags while Morgan finishes ordering the colors she chose to use, and then they begin playing and eating at the same time. Unsurprisingly, their competitiveness immediately flares up the same way it did in class, so they quickly decide to time each other and determine a winner every other game. It tends to alternate, thankfully for them both and their tentative beginning of a friendship, and the results also stay even once they move on to card games.

They don’t talk about anything outside of what’s right in front of them and the result they get anymore, avoiding personal topics on both sides in an unspoken mutual agreement, but Claire can still see Morgan throwing concerned and maybe even caring glances at her from time to time. She doesn’t acknowledge them, pretending all she sees are the competitive glares, but she finds she doesn’t mind at all. She’s not sure why – it’d probably annoy her coming from anyone else, after all, but not from Morgan for some reason. (She has given up on making it make sense at this point.)

The hours fly by without them really noticing. So much so that, when Morgan suggests using a game of Monopoly as a tie-breaker, it’s already quickly approaching 11pm. Claire accepts, although she wonders if she’s making a giant mistake – Monopoly is, well, Monopoly after all.

It gets heated pretty quickly, obviously. They’re both merciless at this game and taking way too much pleasure in taunting the other when they buy something they were both trying to get, so murderous glares, scathing retorts and gloating smiles are exchanged every time they make any sort of purchase that they’re not both indifferent about. They also happen to be pretty good at devising a strategy but still adapting to unplanned scenarios when something doesn’t go the way they hoped it would, and the direct result is that the game drags on forever. Long enough that it’s still not over by the time the clock is nearing midnight, when Morgan has to leave if she doesn’t want to miss the last bus to go back to her place.

“Tie?” Morgan grumbles through gritted teeth.

Claire hesitates for a moment. She has another idea, but she doesn’t know how it’s going to be received… and she’s not any more sure why she’s so eager to suggest it in the first place. She decides not to fight it though, so she takes a deep breath and then a leap of faith.

“We could finish that game on New Year’s Eve, if you don’t have anything else planned?”

Morgan stares at her with wide eyes but doesn’t answer right away, so Claire starts to become nervous for some reason.

“I mean, I know tonight was originally your idea and I also know I could have sworn I hated you, like, up until a month ago, but this was actually a lot of fun and I had a great time, so I just… I mean— If you want—”

Morgan, thankfully, saves her from continuing what is starting to turn into incoherent babbling. “Yeah, I kind of liked kicking your ass too”, she says with a tiny smirk.

Claire scoffs and glares at her. “You literally just admitted we’re tied.”

“Yeah, but I still kicked your ass a lot”, Morgan retorts, grinning now. “Even though you returned the favor.”

Claire rolls her eyes, but it’s more fond than anything else at this point. It’s impressive how much more confident and like her usual self Morgan is now that Claire suggested they spend some more time together, compared to how unsure and hesitant she was earlier today when the idea came from her. It’s almost like a switch being flipped.

“So do I put this away?” Claire asks pointedly, leaning towards the Monopoly board as if to fold it.

“No!” Morgan exclaims, a little too quickly. “I mean, I do want to finish kicking your ass later. So yes, I’ll come back for New Year’s Eve.”

“Okay”, Claire says, nodding to herself. “That’s settled. Now, trust me, if you don’t want to miss the last bus, you need to hurry.”

“I am hurrying”, Morgan retorts, closing her backpack before grabbing her coat.

Claire goes to open the door for her. “I’ll see you in a week, then, I gue— What are you doing?”

She stares, bewildered, as Morgan snaps pictures of the board and its surroundings instead of actually coming to the door immediately.

“I’m just making sure you don’t cheat until then”, Morgan explains brightly.

Claire throws her hands up. “Oh my god, I can’t believe you. I only ever play fair, but you sure do have a twisted mind!”

“Better safe than sorry”, Morgan retorts unabashedly as she walks in front of Claire and gets out of the apartment. “Until next week!”

Claire sighs and shakes her head, but words are failing her so much right now that she closes the door without answering anything. And even though she liked spending the evening with Morgan, even though she doesn’t have any regrets, she’s still glad to go back to being alone in her apartment for the time being. She needs to be on her own to attempt to process at least a little bit of what happened that evening – her phone call with Breeze, the insanity of apparently really working her way to starting to become friends with Morgan… Too many things happened in the span of a few hours, and she needs to deal with them now.

Except, the second she sits down on the couch, she suddenly realizes that she’s exhausted. As in, completely mentally drained. Enough so that she knows she’ll fall asleep right then and there if she doesn’t move within the next thirty seconds.

Getting back up takes all the strength she has left. She stubbornly refuses to listen to the little voice at the back of her mind that tells her to just sleep on the couch, though, knowing full well that she’d be terribly sore in the morning if she did that, then powers through her usual bedtime routine that she refuses to skip despite the circumstances. By the time she’s done and finally able to crash down onto her mattress, Claire isn’t even thinking about anything anymore – she’s just mechanically going through the motions.

She falls into a deep slumber almost immediately, and blessedly gets to enjoy an uninterrupted dreamless night that lasts until late the next morning.

Chapter Text

They both dress a lot more casually on New Year’s Eve. It’s not planned, it’s not something they discussed, but as with Christmas Eve, they seem to instinctively be on the same wavelength again. Honestly, Claire is relieved when she opens the door to find Morgan in jeans in front of her – and not just because she feared she’d be underdressed, this time. She was also so not looking forward to another round of making a fool out of herself, unable to tear her eyes off Morgan even though this is Morgan and what the hell is wrong with her.

“Come in”, she says with a smile, stepping aside so she clears the path into her apartment.

“You didn’t touch the board at all”, Morgan comments as soon as she sees it on the table.

Claire closes the door behind her and rolls her eyes. “If I’d moved it, you would have meticulously compared it with the pictures you took to make sure nothing changed and probably also recounted all the money or something – I’m starting to know you a little –, so I figured it’d be easier if you could just see that nothing moved an inch. I don’t like wasting time for nothing.”

“Sometimes I really think you have too much integrity for your own good”, Morgan says, then shrugs. “I would have moved everything around so you’d miss the minor changes I’d have made to my advantage.”

“I don’t cheat”, Claire retorts. 

Morgan shrugs again. “Recognizing and using every opportunity to switch a situation in your favor is what it takes to win in life most of the time.”

“It also means you’re an asshole, costs you your integrity and makes you lose everyone’s trust. You don’t see a problem with that?”

“As long as I get what I want, no”, Morgan replies without missing a beat. “I think we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

Claire stares at her with a frown and pursed lips. “So what you’re saying is that you’ll use every opportunity to win, whatever the context, whatever the situation, whoever is standing in your way?”

“I guess that’s one way to put it, yes; as long as it doesn’t compromise potential future opportunities, at least. I thought I’d made that clear by now.”

“You’re lying.”

“Excuse me?”

“Morgan, you helped me with my mom even though we kind of hated each other at that point. I didn’t even ask, you just… volunteered it after I broke down in front of you. You could have used that to tear me down, but you did the exact opposite even though I’m one of your main competitors in class. Same goes for making sure Shaun wouldn’t be bullied. You’re infuriating and you have questionable morals at times, yes, but you’re not nearly half as much of a heartless asshole as you want everyone – you included, apparently – to believe. You care about people; I don’t get why you won’t admit that. Hell, you’re studying to become a surgeon, someone who’ll spend her life helping others! That’s kind of a big giveaway to begin with.”

Morgan rolls her eyes, though Claire can see the reaction is more of a front than genuine. “Did I come here so we could finish our game of Monopoly or so you could psychoanalyze me?”

Claire shakes her head and sighs, but she still lets it go. They already had a similar conversation once anyway; but until Morgan is willing to open up a little, this is never going to get anywhere.

“It was your turn to roll the dice, if I remember correctly”, she simply says, sitting down on the couch.

Claire wins.

And Morgan, unsurprisingly, is a really really sore loser. So Claire can’t resist the urge to gloat a little and make it worse, just because she knows full well Morgan would have done it if she’d won too.

“Aaaah, what a good way to end the year”, she says, smiling sweetly. “Honestly, the fact that you were the one to suggest using a game of Monopoly to determine the ultimate winner makes this even better.”

“Are you about done?” Morgan snaps.

“Someone’s in a bad mood”, Claire teases.

“Shut up.”

“Stop making it so easy to piss you off even more”, she retorts, grinning wider. She’s never been that competitive or eager to rub it in with anyone other than Morgan in her entire life, but it turns out to be fun. “Anyway, we still have two hours to go before midnight; what do you want to do? Rematch, maybe?”

They ordered takeout this time again, and already ate during their game of Monopoly that took forever to end.

“No rematch”, Morgan answers shortly.

“Why? Are you afraid I’ll beat you twice?”

“No, I’m just good at maths. So I know we wouldn’t be done before the last bus this time again.”

“You do know there are additional buses tonight so people can go back home after celebrating the New Year, right?”

“It’s still not a risk I’m willing to take”, Morgan says resolutely.

Claire shrugs. She doesn’t care; she’s the current winner anyway. “Have it your way. So?”

For lack of a better idea, they end up talking about their classes, comparing their thoughts about the different teaching methods among other things, and Claire is surprised to discover that Morgan dislikes some of their professors.

“But you’re always extra nice to them too”, she points out.

“Yes, well, I’m stacking all the odds in my favor”, Morgan explains casually. “What I think about them doesn’t matter; what they think I think about them is the important part.”

Annoyed, Claire sighs. “You do realize that the odds are already stacked in your favor, no matter whether you behave like a normal human being or suck up on a permanent basis, right?”

“What? Why?” Morgan asks, clearly confused.

“Seriously?! You’re white, you’re blonde, you have a pretty face with a pretty smile, and people are biased whether it’s intentional or not.”

“I’m also a woman in a male-dominated field”, Morgan reminds her.

“Fair point”, Claire concedes. “You still don’t have to put in that much effort into making our professors like you – especially since you’re among the top five students in literally every class.”

“Maybe not. But it still can’t hurt to showcase my pretty smile more often than I naturally would”, Morgan replies. “I’m not taking any chances.”

Claire realizes with a terrible delay that she’s the one who originally said the word pretty with regards to Morgan. She didn’t even noticed; it just slipped, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Her cheeks heat up a little when it hits her that yes, she does find Morgan pretty now that she thinks about it (dress or no dress, apparently), and she wonders if a cold, very cold shower would be enough to make both the thought and the blush go away.

She really needs to get a grip.

And to redirect the conversation to something else, like, right now.

“Whatever”, she mutters. “Before I forget – do you want some champagne at midnight?”

Morgan looks at her oddly, but still doesn’t comment on the brutal change of topic. “You do remember that we’re not of legal drinking age?”

“So?” Claire retorts. “One of my roommates who is of legal drinking age buys alcohol for the rest of us as well. It’s not exactly complicated.”

Morgan raises her eyebrows. “Huh. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“It’s not because you insist on calling me Saint Claire that I actually am one!” Claire huffs. “I grew up with an alcoholic mom, remember; I was way younger than I should have been the first time I tasted beer out of curiosity.”

“And you’re not worried?”

“About?”

“Drinking.”

“I’m very careful about it”, Claire admits. “Only for big occasions – or rarely for parties – and never much, but I guess… I guess if I made it a rule not to drink at all, at some point it might become tempting at the worst moments. I’d rather know my limits and what is safe for me instead. So, champagne?”

“Half a glass”, Morgan answers. “Just to celebrate a little.”

Once that’s settled, they put on the television while they wait for the clock to reach midnight, mostly because Claire is sure they’d manage to completely miss the countdown otherwise. There are silly programs that they both roll their eyes at on pretty much every channel, but after zapping for a while, they settle on one that they consider semi-watchable – even though they still spend their time criticizing it. It feels both natural and awkward for some reason; but then again, that’s kind of the best description of their relationship at the moment. They did everything in the wrong order and probably too fast at times, so it’s entirely unsurprising that the atmosphere between them often seems to go from long-time friends to almost strangers without a warning – or, as is the case right now, even both simultaneously.

Claire gets up to pour them two half-glasses of champagne when there are only a few minutes left, and they sip it while they wait for the countdown to start. Once it does, they alternate who calls out which number until they loudly say “Zero!” at the same time, then clink their glasses together in a spontaneous gesture while smiling at each other.

After a few seconds, Claire absent-mindedly looks back at the screen showing the giant party that some people threw to celebrate. It’s far from captivating; she’s not exactly watching with rapt attention, yet she almost misses Morgan’s whispered “thank you” because of how quiet it is, even compared to the already low background noise of the TV.

Startled, she turns her head to stare at Morgan, whose gaze is fixed firmly on her lap and refusing to look up.

“What? What for?” she asks, confused.

“You know damn well what for”, Morgan says impatiently, mumbling the words as she turns her now empty glass over and over again between her fingers. “Anyway, this program still sucks and I’d better go if I want to catch the half-hour bus.”

Claire is more than certain that Morgan still has plenty of time ahead of her before she’s at risk of missing that bus, but she doesn’t say anything. As usual, after allowing herself to be vulnerable for a grand total of five seconds, Morgan is now retreating back into her shell so she can pretend it never happened. Claire is starting to be familiar with the concept.

“It was nice”, she simply replies, an acknowledgement that doesn’t require any further discussion. When Morgan gets up from the couch, she follows suit. “Now, try not to spend too much time revising during the few days we have left before the classes start again, okay?”

“Why, do you want me to fall behind?” Morgan retorts, though her voice is more teasing than offended.

“No, I want you to rest your poor brain… but if it means less competition I won’t be complaining either”, Claire answers on the same tone.

Morgan shakes her head. “The role of ruthless manipulator is mine; yours is the overly empathetic nice girl who’s always willing to help. Don’t try to switch it around, it wouldn’t suit you.”

And the confidence is back, just like that, once again. If Claire weren’t getting used to it by now, it’d be giving her whiplash.

“You can keep that role, honestly”, she says. “Anyway, text me once you’re back in your apartment safely, okay?”

Morgan rolls her eyes. “Are you my mother or something?”

“No, but there are often weird people out in the streets during New Year celebrations and we drank a little, so I’d rather know I have nothing to worry about.”

Morgan sighs exaggeratedly. “Fine. Whatever.”

“See you in a few days”, Claire tells her once they get to the door of her apartment.

Morgan smiles back at her but doesn’t say anything before leaving, though she does look over her shoulder one last time as she starts to walk down the stairs, and that’s the last Claire sees of her until their classes start again.

(The text she gets half an hour later or so, once Morgan is back to her place? It simply reads “Would you look at that, I’m still alive!”.

And, somehow, that’s exactly what Claire was expecting it to.)

They don’t talk about those two evenings they spent together during the holidays. Claire refuses to bring them up in front of Shaun or Alex, knowing full well it would lead to some questions she’d have no idea how to answer, and apparently Morgan feels the exact same way because she doesn’t say anything either. It kind of becomes their secret; something they don’t even mention when it’s just the two of them together.

It doesn’t stop Alex from giving the two of them knowing looks, though, almost right from their first day back – like he’s figured out that something happened, somehow. And when that look stays on his face too often, it unnerves Claire and puts her on edge; so much so that on such occasions, she makes sure to team up with Morgan to tease him extra-hard until it’s gone.

(Except it usually comes back with a vengeance way sooner than she’d like.)

They get an A+ on their biochemistry project. Morgan brags about it for days, because of course she does, and Claire lets her. They worked really hard to write the best composition they could, after all, so she’s really proud of that grade as well. Alex, however, puts his hands over his ears every time Morgan mentions it after suffering through the first two full days of boasting, because he really can’t take any more of it.

Shaun just ignores all of them, using noise-cancelling earphones to tune out their endless bickering at lunch from then on. Lea’s Christmas gift, apparently, and Claire wonders how often he complained to her to lead to that result. She can’t blame him, though; they’re not exactly the most quiet people since she and Morgan started actually talking to each other. She does feel bad about it once she realizes how much it has affected him so far, even outside of all the times he reminded them he was trying to concentrate, but the earphones seem to turn lunch break into an enjoyable experience for him as well and she’s really glad they do. So she makes sure to thank Lea for this wonderful idea the next time she sees her.

Which turns out to be in Chick ‘n’ Bread, because she wasn’t in the apartment when Claire studied with Shaun on Monday and on Tuesday.

“Lea!” Claire calls out, loud enough to be heard over the background music when she sees her coming out of the staff’s room.

“Oh please no”, Morgan mutters. Claire pretends she didn’t hear her.

Lea does a double take as soon as she spots them, then hurriedly walks over to them.

“Okay, what?” is the first thing she asks. “I thought your big project was done and handed over, like, before the holidays. What are you doing here?”

“Another project”, Claire admits. “Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for getting Shaun those noise-cancelling earphones. He’s much more relaxed at lunch now.”

Lea laughs. “Good to know. Apparently, none of you ever learned how to shut up – not that I can blame you or judge you, considering I’m, well… me. But, in more interesting news: why do all your professors love to pair you up for projects?”

“Why do you love to get all up in other people’s business?” Morgan retorts, smiling contemptuously and not bothering to hide her animosity as usual. “Is your life really so uninteresting you need to live vicariously through others?”

Claire sighs, although she’s secretly glad she avoided having to explain to Lea that they actually paired up voluntarily this time. “You do realize you’re being a jerk and it’s entirely uncalled for, right?”

“Oh, great”, Morgan retorts, annoyed. “Now you decide to take her side.”

“Well, I do know what it’s like to be in her shoes, in case you forgot you acted the exact same way with me for two damn months after we met”, Claire reminds her. “It’s not the most pleasant thing.”

“Yes, but this is different. She’s—”

“Right here”, Lea chimes in. “Also quite entertained! Good to know you two haven’t fully stopped arguing, it was getting weird to see you act like you basically became besties last month. This feels more normal. Anyway, I gotta go work; have fun with this new project of yours!” She begins to leave, but turns around after a few steps to add something to Morgan’s attention. “Oh, by the way? I think my life is a lot more interesting than yours, thanks for asking. But please don’t stop trying to hurt my feelings, I actually find your desperate efforts very amusing!”

She ends her sentence with a cheeky wink, causing Morgan to glower at her retreating form for a good full minute while Claire basically dies laughing.

“I hate you both”, Morgan bites out.

“You sure as hell don’t hate me – not anymore, at least –, and you just hate that Lea manages to get under your skin when the opposite is never true”, Claire replies, smiling.

“She does not get under my skin.”

“I just have to look at you right now to know that she does. Anyway – cranial nerves, Morgan. We should be focusing on cranial nerves, not Lea.”

“We should also find a new place to work at.”

Claire shakes her head. “Thanks, but I like this place. Just chill with Lea, and I promise you you will as well.”

“Never”, Morgan replies through gritted teeth.

Claire shrugs. “Okay. Suit yourself!”

The rest of the semester flies by. Between the anatomy project, two more projects Claire partners up with Shaun for, and the approaching midterms, they barely have time to breathe – let alone socialize, if they want to miraculously get some sleep from time to time. The result is that Jenny, who chose to organize a road trip with two of her classmates for spring break, decides to convince Claire to join them despite her constant protests.

“But I’ll have to study!” Claire repeats for the umpteenth time, the weekend before midterms start, hoping Jenny will let it go this time.

The issue, though, is that Jenny has one major thing in common with Morgan: she never stops until she gets what she wants.

“It’s spring break”, Jenny says sternly, for the umpteenth time as well. “You can get your head out of your books for five days, Claire, it’s not going to kill you. You know what fucks people up? Studying excessively and without breaks. You still have an entire semester to go before the summer holidays; you need to take some time off. And I don’t trust you to do that on your own. You’re coming.”

“Jenny, I already told you know I’d rather stay here”, Claire sighs.

“And I already told you that’s not going to happen”, Jenny replies. “In one week, you’re getting in that car. You’ll thank me later, when you actually realize I was right from the start.”

Jenny was right from the start.

It pains Claire to admit it, but she did need the time away from San José – away from her studies, away from the place she hasn’t left in months, away from responsibilities. Getting up in the morning without having to worry about anything outside of where they’ll sleep that night feels amazing.

She does feel bad about leaving Morgan on her own, though. Even though they never talked about Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve after the rest of the first semester started, Claire knows Morgan was kind of hoping something similar would happen during spring break as well – not that she ever said it out loud. The spark of disappointment in her eyes, when Claire told her Jenny was dragging her along on a road trip, was confirmation enough.

To be perfectly honest, Claire would have loved to spend a day (or more) with Morgan during the holidays as well. Considering how busy they all were from the end of winter break until midterms the previous week, they barely had the opportunity to talk outside of lunch and their time at Chick ‘n’ Bread, but even those moments were filled with nothing but school-related talk. The only exceptions were the times Morgan left the café-restaurant with her and they walked together for a few minutes before their paths diverged – Claire going to Shaun’s and Morgan going back to her place –, but those were rare and far between. And even then, most of what happened was Claire sharing some pictures and videos of Breeze that kept coming in from the owners of New Beginnings.

Her mom seemed to be doing amazing, and Claire was truly happy about it, despite how conflicted she still was about whether she wanted to put in the work to try to mend their relationship afterwards. Morgan never tried to tell her what to do, though, just listened whenever Claire needed to rant about her feelings for once, and she was very grateful about it. She didn’t think—

Jenny’s amused voice drags her out of her thoughts.

“Okay, spill it out. Who do you have a crush on?”

“What?” Claire mutters, utterly confused. She looks at her friend, sitting on the bed next to her, and waits for an explanation.

They’re sharing a room at a random motel they found for the night, exactly as they’ve had the past two days, while Jenny’s two classmates are systematically sharing another room as well. It’s what works best for everyone.

“You’ve been smiling to yourself for, like, five minutes”, Jenny explains, laughing a little. “So, who is it? Is it that guy who’s been low-key flirting with you for months? What’s his name again?”

“Jared”, Claire grumbles.

Right now, she regrets ever telling Jenny that he apparently decided to wait for her, after they both agreed they didn’t have time to date at all for the time being. The thing is, she’s not really interested, but she’s not uninterested either – he’s handsome, nice enough now that she knows him better, and she’d be willing to give him at least a chance if things calmed down a little during the beginning of the second semester… although she doubts she’d develop feelings for him like he seems to have for her. That said, she’s not going to deny she kind of appreciates the attention.

“And no, I don’t have a crush on Jared – or anyone else, for that matter”, Claire continues. “I was just thinking… Well, I hope Morgan is doing okay.”

Jenny looks at her oddly. “Why wouldn’t she be?”

“She’s spending the holidays alone.”

“Uh-huh. So? I fail to see the problem here.”

Claire grimaces. “She doesn’t really like being alone on holidays. And she’d kill me if she knew I told you that, so please don’t repeat it.”

“She survived winter break just fine, didn’t she?” Jenny asks, even though the question is way less rhetorical than she thinks it is. “Also, since when do you care that much about Morgan anyway?”

Claire feels like the temperature in the room has been turned up a few notches all of a sudden. “Okay, so here’s the thing… I might have spent Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve with Morgan?” she squeaks.

“You— Excuse me, WHAT?”

“We had a great time, actually”, Claire mumbles, averting her eyes to avoid Jenny’s piercing stare. “We’ve kind of become friends?”

“Excuse me, I must have misheard”, Jenny exclaims incredulously. “You spent Christmas Eve with the girl I heard you spend two months complaining about at the beginning of the year because you couldn’t stand her, and you had a great time? What? Also, why am I only hearing about this now?”

Claire shifts uncomfortably. “We didn’t tell anyone about it, so you’re actually the first to know. And yes – I mean, she’s not nearly as bad as I thought at first. It’s rocky sometimes, but we do get along quite well. Now, can we talk about something else?”

“Uh-huh”, Jenny replies slowly, “sure we can. Interesting turn of events is all.”

They don’t mention Morgan again during the entire road trip, but Jenny sometimes has a look on her face very similar to Alex’s now and it’s starting to drive Claire a little crazy. Why is everyone so interested in her developing friendship with Morgan anyway? It was rather unexpected, sure, but there’s no reason to make such a big deal out of it.

Claire doesn’t get it.

It’s Sunday, the last day of spring break, when that conversation comes back in her mind and she suddenly puts her finger on something that hadn’t hit her quite yet.

Did she really have a smile on her face when she was thinking about Morgan?

Chapter Text

Compared to the frenzy of the end of the first semester, the second one starts mercifully slow, to everyone’s relief.

On their first day back in med school, they get their grades for their midterms as well as for the projects they handed over or defended right before spring break started. Claire and Morgan end up with another A+ together for their anatomy project; plus, neither of them gets anything less than an A for the rest of their grades, so they keep their perfect 4.0 GPA average much to their relief – and Shaun does as well. Claire isn’t quite sure that’ll help her worry less about exams in the future, but it certainly makes her feel better to know that all her relentless studying so far at least earned her the results she was hoping to get.

Their classes change. They discover some new professors while some others disappear from their schedules, they all have to figure out new paths within the main building and the secondary ones to get from each class to the next one as quickly as possible, but nothing is as significantly jarring as finding out that the introduction to pharmaceutics Claire, Morgan and Shaun signed up for won’t be taught the way they expected it would. Apparently, only ten first-year students chose it this year, and the administration decided it wasn’t worth booking a professor and a lab just for them. So instead of having a course of their own, they’ll get included with second-year students who are attending a similar class – albeit harder, in theory. The ten of them will be graded less severely is all.

The only one who doesn’t freak out about it is Shaun. He already shared a few classes with second-year students during the first semester, after all, so this is nothing extraordinary for him, but Claire certainly wasn’t expecting this to happen to her as well. And Morgan, for all she pretends to be cool with it and nothing more than excited… It turns out Claire knows her too well by now not to see that her smile has a nervous edge to it. What’s reassuring, though – and makes Claire feel a lot less alone – is that, seconds before they step into the lab that will be their classroom for this course, each and every one of the seven other students around them seems to be even more panicked than them both combined.

Claire sits down next to Shaun, as she usually does, while Morgan takes the seat across the aisle. Less than a minute later, the second-year students start to trickle in; most of them stare at the ten people already in the room with curiosity, and a few also say hi to Shaun. One of those, a curly-haired brunette who walks in alone, asks Morgan if the seat next to her is taken, and when the answer is no, chooses to complete the front row with a smile on her face. Her name, as Claire learns a few minutes later, is Carly Lever, and if the way Shaun keeps glancing at her is any indication, she seems to have quite an effect on him.

Claire smiles to herself, and wonders how long it’ll take for him to realize Carly keeps glancing at him too.

Even though there’s not a single project in sight yet, Claire and Morgan still continue to meet at Chick ‘n’ Bread four times a week as they’ve grown used to. Neither of them wants to admit it out loud, but they’d miss being around each other if they stopped, and so they begin revising rather than doing projects during those evenings they spend together.

Lea raises her eyebrows when she realizes they returned without what she’d consider a good reason, but she doesn’t actually call them out on it even though Claire was definitely expecting her to. She does begin to give them looks sometimes, however, and that makes her the third person to do that, and Claire is definitely going to need an explanation at some point because what is even going on.

(Truth be told, she’s starting to feel like she’s missing something that she should have been the first one to know.)

The day things go haywire, they’ve been back in school for just over two weeks.

It’s Tuesday night, and Claire is walking into Chick ‘n’ Bread with Morgan when she sees, out of the corner of her eye, a guy get out of a car that just parked right across the street. She doesn’t think much about it at first – there’s nothing suspicious about people getting out of cars, after all –, but she begins to frown when she notices him standing in the street and staring into the café-restaurant through the front window during ten minutes with apparently no intention to move.

She becomes a lot more worried once she realizes he seems to be staring at Morgan, specifically. Morgan who cannot see him at all, considering she’s sitting with her back to the front window.

Claire still doesn’t say anything right away. She might be wrong and she doesn’t want to freak out Morgan for no reason if that’s the case, but by the time they’re halfway through their food, she can tell there’s no way she’ll manage to concentrate on her textbooks while the guy is there. And she has a really bad feeling about this.

But she needs to say something that won’t cause Morgan to turn around to try to look at the guy herself. Because that’d alert him immediately and it wouldn’t be good at all.

So she settles for a step-by-step approach. “Can you take a picture of me with your phone?” she asks as casually as she can.

Morgan, of course, looks at her with utter disbelief. “What? Why?”

“It’ll make sense in a minute, I promise”, Claire says. She can hear the edge in her own voice, no matter how much she tries to mask it, and it’s a testament to how worried she is because years of having to take care of herself when her mom disappeared for days at a time have turned her into quite a decent actress. You don’t get stolen goods out of a supermarket if guilt or worry is written all over you as you do so.

She cocks her head to the side and plasters a smile on her face that she hopes looks a little more genuine than it feels once Morgan has gotten her phone out of her pocket, then stares at the camera while her picture is being taken. As soon as it’s done, she grabs her own phone, and this time Morgan looks at her like she’s truly lost her mind.

“Put it back down. Right now. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I still have all my brain cells and trust me when I tell you that this is not going to happen.”

“I’m not going to take a picture of you. That’s the entire point of all of this”, Claire answers, still smiling despite what she’s about to say – from an outside perspective, they need to look like they’re having a great time and there’s no need to get suspicious about anything at all. “Do not turn around, but there’s a guy on the street who’s been staring at you since we arrived here and I’m pretty sure he’s a stalker or something. I’m going to take a picture of him so I can show it to you without him realizing we noticed his presence, okay?”

She zooms in and waits a few seconds for his face to get illuminated by the headlights of one of the cars moving through the street, then snaps his photo and turns the phone around for Morgan to see. As if they were just two regular students showing each other the pictures they just took of one another, and there was nothing suspicious going on at all.

It’s only then that she notices Morgan has gone deathly pale. She couldn’t see her face until then, since it was hidden behind her phone, but Morgan is definitely panicking and it gets a million times worse the second she casts her eyes down to look at the screen.

“You know him?” Claire asks, trying to keep her own worry out of her voice. What Morgan needs right now is a calm and soothing presence, not someone who’ll react exactly like her.

Claire doesn’t get an answer. In fact, it looks like Morgan hasn’t even heard her.

“Look at me”, Claire says, gently but firmly, while still keeping her face warm and open so she won’t alert the guy who she guesses keeps staring at them, even though she can’t really tell without looking at him directly – which she needs to do as little as possible, especially now. “Morgan, look at me.”

It takes a few seconds, but their gazes finally lock; and when they do, the plain fear that Claire reads in Morgan’s eyes shocks her so much that she feels like she’s been slapped in the face.

“I’m going to get you out of here”, she promises, ignoring her own suddenly racing heart and the alarm bells ringing out loudly in her mind. “There’s a service door at the back; we can leave through there – I’ll ask Lea to take us to it –, but we need to be discreet so he doesn’t suspect anything. Okay? The last thing we need is for him to figure out what we’re doing and end up finding us before we’re far enough away.”

By the time Claire is done speaking, Morgan has broken eye contact to stare at her trembling hands instead. She seems to be in a panicked haze, way too disconnected from reality to be able to formulate an answer, so Claire starts giving instructions without wasting a second.

“Here’s my simplest escape plan”, she says calmly. She gestures towards Morgan’s face, as if she was pointing out something that needed to be fixed – make-up, perhaps; she’s not even sure herself, all that matters is what it looks like from outside the café-restaurant. “Take your bag with you and go to the restroom. I know it’s hard, but walk calmly and absolutely do not look back, alright? I’ll join you in about five minutes and we’ll leave together through the service door. It’s going to be okay. You can do this.”

Faced with Morgan’s continued silence, Claire starts to wonder whether she’s even being heard or not. It’s so different from all the times she saw Morgan jump or curl in on herself since the beginning of the year, because then the instinctive reaction was always followed by powering through and pretending nothing happened less than five seconds later. Tonight, though… Tonight, it’s as if the rational part of Morgan’s brain shut down completely. And it’s everything but a reassuring sight, considering how hell-bent she always is on not letting anyone see her be vulnerable.

Also, something needs to happen. Now. Before Morgan’s total lack of movement lasts long enough to be suspicious no matter what Claire does to try to fool the guy.

In the end, it’s Lea walking over to them with a frown on her face that finally gets Morgan to unfreeze and head to the restroom as instructed. And, for once is her life, Claire suddenly finds herself grateful that the two dislike each other that much, because she’s pretty sure that ‘oh no, not her ’ turned out to be the only thought strong enough for Morgan to process right now. It’s also a relief that Lea switched her Wednesday shifts to Tuesdays for this semester to accommodate her new schedule, because Claire would definitely have a lot more trouble keeping her own feelings in check if she couldn’t count on someone from the staff to help them make it out safely right now.

“What’s going on with her?” Lea asks curiously, pointing to Morgan as the latter disappears behind the corner leading to the restroom.

“Please keep reacting normally and do not look outside no matter what I tell you”, Claire answers with urgency in her voice. From the corner of her eye, she checks that the guy hasn’t moved, then she mimics reapplying her own lipstick as if to accompany a verbal explanation, hoping to buy them as much time as possible. “I think someone is stalking Morgan. I need you to get us out of here through the service door you told me about once; in about five minutes, after I join her in the restroom pretending to be looking for her because she’s taking forever. Can you do that?”

“Sure. But you don’t actually need me to find the service door: it’s in the storage room right next to the restroom – you know, the one labeled ‘private’? It’s unlocked at all times, despite the name. Just go inside and you’ll be set.”

“The door to the storage room and the service door are unlocked? Are you sure?” Claire insists. “Because that sounds like a giant security issue.”

“The service door can’t be opened from outside, so it’s totally fine”, Lea explains. “I don’t get why the managers don’t restrict the access to the storage room beyond the ‘private’ label either, but right now you’re lucky they don’t. Just be quick so no one sees you, okay?”

 “Of course”, Claire answers immediately, not wanting Lea to get in trouble for helping them. “Also – I’m going to text you the picture I took of the guy. Can you tell me when you see him leave after we’re gone? So we know if he might be after us or not.”

Lea gives her a warm half-smile but looks at her with worried eyes. “Yeah, sure, no problem. You two be safe, okay?”

“We’ll try”, Claire promises.

She sends the picture once Lea is back at the counter then forces herself to continue eating some of her food while scrolling mindlessly through an app on her phone, pretending to wait for Morgan; though after a few minutes, she begins looking back at the restroom with feigned impatience from time to time. She makes sure to keep this up for long enough to be believable, adding a few sighs here and there for good measure, and when she decides it’s the right time to act, she grabs her own bag before heading to the restroom as well. Too bad for their coats; they’ll be a bit cold considering the temperature outside, but her cover story would just stop being believable if she took them with her in addition to her bag.

She finds Morgan in front of the sinks, looking a lot more controlled than five minutes ago. The fear hasn’t left her eyes, though, so Claire knows the composure she’s trying to exude is more of a façade than anything else – but it’s a very Morgan way to react, at least, and it’s much more reassuring than how completely unresponsive she was earlier.

“Let’s go”, Claire whispers.

She gets back out of the restroom and immediately into the storage room next to it, both doors invisible from the front window thanks to the corner blocking the view, then out into the alley through their current savior that is the service door. Morgan follows her without a word the entire time, including when they start hurrying away so fast they’re almost running. They need to get out of the alley as quickly as possible – it leads to the street the guy is currently in on the side opposite where they’re going, after all, so it would only take a few steps for him to go check what’s going on there after he realizes they got out of Chick ‘n’ Bread through another exit.

They make it to another street without being caught, though, and they’re far enough away he won’t be able to find them anymore when Claire gets a message from Lea saying the guy just went back to his car and drove off well above the speed limit in the city. She sends back three quick texts in a row; first to thank her, then to ask her to please give their coats to Shaun so he can bring them with him at school tomorrow, and finally to tell her where she put the money to pay for their meal in the little storage room so Lea can go get it right away. After that, she focuses solely on Morgan, who still hasn’t said a word since Claire showed her the picture of the guy stalking her.

“Okay, he left and doesn’t know where we are, so we’re safe. Now let’s go back to my place”, Claire says softly.

“I’m fine”, Morgan snaps – or at least she tries to, because her voice is shaking and that gives her away immediately. It still floods Claire with relief to hear her talking again.

“No, you’re not”, she replies gently but firmly. “And that’s okay. Look, I’m not going to ask you who he is or why he freaked you out like that; it’s not the point right now. All I know is that I saw him park across the street when we got to Chick ‘n’ Bread so I’m going to assume he followed us there in his car, which means he might have been doing this for a while without us noticing, and I’m not taking any chances if he’s found out your address already. I know your apartment is your comfort zone, but you live alone, Morgan; it’s too much of a risk until we know more. I live with four roommates – even if he shows up at my place somehow, we’ll be a lot safer there. Besides, I’m not leaving you alone right now. I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“You don’t have to do that. It’s my problem, not yours. I can deal with it on my own”, Morgan retorts stubbornly. Her hands are still shaking, though, and she appears to be on the brink of tears, so it’s not nearly as convincing she were aiming for.

“Maybe you can”, Claire concedes. “Maybe not. That’s still not the point. I’m your friend, and I’m worried for you, and I don’t think you should be alone tonight. You helped me when I needed it with my mom; let me help you in return now. Please. I don’t know what’s going on exactly, but you don’t have to do everything on your own – you don’t have to deal with this all alone. Okay?”

They’ve reached a bus stop that she recognizes as one that her usual line serves, so she puts her bag down at her feet and waits for a bus to show up. Morgan, thankfully, doesn’t try to walk away. 

“Fine. I’m going with you, on one condition. You don’t ask a single question.”

“Look, I’m not going to force you to talk if you don’t want to. But… if you ever do want to talk, about anything, at any time, know that I’m here, alright?”

“I’m fine.”

Leave it to Morgan to argue that she’s fine when it’s more than obvious that she’s not, but Claire doesn’t insist. If there’s one thing she’s come to realize, it’s that Morgan will always open up only on her own terms. If ever.

They don’t say much during the bus ride. Morgan seems to be a million miles away and Claire isn’t sure how to be there for someone who’s so reluctant to accept any sort of help; for all her experience volunteering at shelters, she’s never really been faced with people who haven’t already made the first step towards finding a support system before. This is uncharted territory for her, and she has trouble figuring out how to handle it exactly.

She sends a text to Shaun to tell him she won’t come to his place later that evening then fiddles with her phone restlessly, unable to stop herself from doing something with her hands now that her adrenaline levels are going back down and a mix of anxiety and worry is taking over instead. Her mind won’t stop running a million different scenarios at once, wondering what’s the backstory behind what went down tonight and how it might relate to everything else she’s noticed about Morgan from the start, but she’s all too aware that getting answers would require asking questions and she refuses to disregard Morgan’s boundaries about her personal life in any way – especially tonight.

All of her roommates are still out or already locked themselves in their rooms when they arrive, thankfully, so Claire can grab the air mattress they keep deflated and folded for whenever one of them brings back a friend from the cupboard where they store it without having to dodge questions she wouldn’t know how to answer in the first place. She tells Morgan to go straight to her room while she brews them some hot tea to warm them up after their trip back here without their coats, and she only allows herself to relax once that’s done and they’re both sitting on her bed with the warm mugs in their hands.

“What are you going to do tomorrow?” she asks quietly.

“I thought we agreed to no questions”, Morgan retorts bitingly. She seems a lot more like herself now that they’re safe inside and not out in the streets anymore.

Claire sighs. “I know. But I also need to know whether you plan on going to school tomorrow or not.”

“Of course I’m going. I have a perfect attendance record and I intend to keep it!”

“Is it safe for you to go?”

“I’ll be surrounded by people the entire day. Nothing can happen to me on campus.”

“What about after classes end? What are you going to do?”

Morgan keeps glaring at her cup of tea, stubbornly refusing to meet Claire’s eyes. “Just mind your own damn business.”

Alright. Different approach it is. “Did I ever tell you what I do on Thursday nights?”

The seemingly random question finally causes Morgan to glance at her curiously. “What has that got to do with anything?”

“I’m guessing that’s a no. I volunteer at a shelter for battered women.”

Morgan’s entire body freezes. And then she looks furious. “I told you to mind your own business!” she hisses, but there’s an edge of fear to her voice now.

“I’ve heard too many stories with horrible ends”, Claire whispers. “I know you want to think you can handle everything life throws at you all on your own, but please be careful. Please. I have resources; I know people who can give you advice. Don’t do anything stupid because you’re trying to prove a point to the universe or something. You once told me you don’t know how to ask for help, but you don’t have to. I’m here.”

There’s a long, very long stretch of silence after that. Claire has grown accustomed to those; Morgan always seems to need them to think when something is making her uncomfortable.

“If he had found out my address already, he’d have showed up there”, Morgan eventually says, apparently once she’s decided that there’s some basic information she’s willing to reveal. “Can I come back to your place with you tomorrow night as well? Just until I figure out what to do.”

“Of course”, Claire answers immediately, relieved to know that she won’t have to let Morgan out of her sight after their classes end. She’d be worried sick the entire time otherwise.

She has no idea who that guy is or what he did to Morgan exactly to have such an effect on her, but she knows she’ll feel like she’s holding her breath until she’s one hundred percent sure he can never get to her anymore. The thought of anything happening to Morgan terrifies her, to an extent she didn’t even think was possible until now.

She wants to ask so many questions, get so many answers, but she knows Morgan will shut her out entirely if she pushes any further, so she forces herself to keep quiet instead.

It’s one of the hardest things she’s ever had to do.

“Well, I don’t think either of us will be able to process a single word from a textbook or the notes we took in class tonight”, she says once they’re done drinking their tea. “So how about we go to bed as soon as we’re done blowing up the air mattress? Getting some sleep wouldn’t hurt for once.”

“Why not”, Morgan answers absent-mindedly.

She seems lost in her own head again; as strange as it sounds, her eyes seem to be looking inward somehow rather than at what’s happening around her. Claire only forces her to snap out of it once she’s done setting everything up for the night; she hands her sweatpants and a T-shirt to use as pajamas then points her to the direction of the bathroom, and less than ten minutes later they’re both in bed with covers providing a comforting weight over them.

They don’t fall asleep quickly, though. Morgan keeps tossing and turning, and Claire has to use all of her willpower not to move from her spot on her bed. If she listened to her instincts, she’d reach down to the air mattress to gather Morgan in her arms and tell her she’s going to be okay, but she knows that’d both be a lie and not received well at all.

So halfway through the night, when the tears starts spilling, Claire also pretends she doesn’t hear the quiet sobs Morgan doesn’t quite manage to muffle entirely.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Shaun and Alex find them outside the amphitheaters, before the classes start. Morgan barely slept all night and Claire didn’t fare much better, so they got up as soon as the alarm started to sound and ended up catching the bus before Claire’s usual one – which means, of course, that they arrived on campus earlier than usual as well. It also means that there’s time for discussions and questions before they need to go take their seats inside, but neither of them is in the mood to humor Alex’s curiosity at the moment.

“Does somebody want to explain to me why Shaun and I are currently carrying your coats?”

“No”, Morgan answers curtly.

“I tried grilling our mutual friend here, but apparently Lea gave them to him without context”, Alex insists. “So. What juicy story am I missing?”

“A private one”, Claire retorts, grabbing the coat Shaun is handing to her while Morgan snatches hers out of Alex’s grip. They both put it on without another word.

Alex’s tone suddenly switches from amused and curious to serious and concerned. “Are you two okay?”

Sometimes, Claire should really remember that Alex was a detective before he signed up for med school. Of course he’d immediately realize something is wrong.

“Right now, mostly annoyed at the repeated attempts to invade my privacy”, Morgan bites out, her eyes throwing daggers at him. “Why is it so hard for everyone to leave me alone when I ask you to?!”

She storms off without giving anyone a chance to answer, and Alex gapes at her retreating form for a few seconds before turning to Claire with worried eyes. “I’m serious – is she okay?”

“Your guess is as good as mine”, she says honestly. “Morgan is… Morgan, and when she’s dead set on shutting everyone out, she sure sticks to it.”

“But you’re worried too”, he points out. It’s an assessment, not a question, and Claire doesn’t try to deny it.

“I’m going to go check on her”, she says quietly instead. “Just, please… Cut her some slack today. That’s all I’m asking for.”

Alex gives her a half-hearted smile. “Sure. And you take care of her, okay?”

“I’m doing my best, but she doesn’t make it easy”, Claire admits with a grimace.

He snorts. “Yeah, I can only guess. Morgan wouldn’t really be Morgan if she didn’t rebel at the mere thought of help, though, am I right? Now, go. She needs you, even if she hasn’t quite realized that yet”, he tells her, his voice uncharacteristically soft.

Claire frowns, puzzled. “What makes you say th—”

“Go”, Alex repeats, insistent. “The rest can wait.”

“Point taken. See you two in class”, Claire says hurriedly. She smiles at Shaun and Alex then turns around and goes to find Morgan, who she can see standing in a corner by herself now.

She expects to be met with a glare and an injunction to go right back the way she came from, but that’s not what happens at all. In fact, Morgan seems to relax rather than tense when she arrives.

“You got it out of your system?” Claire asks pointedly.

Morgan answers with a sigh and an eye roll. “I know, I know, he was just worried and trying to help and I overreacted. Spare me the lecture on how I’m being a terrible friend, miss goody-two-shoes; I can see you judging me from a mile away.”

Claire wants to keep the smile out of her face, she really does, but it still tugs at the corners of her lips all the same. And it’s the perfect mirror of the warmth that spreads through her at the sense of normalcy that goes with a retort like that coming from Morgan.

“What?”

Claire shakes her head fondly. “Nothing.”

“Claire.”

“Morgan?”

Morgan stares her down. “Seriously?!”

“I mean it, it’s nothing! It’s just… It’s just good to have you back”, Claire explains with a half-shrug.

Morgan frowns, confused. “I didn’t go anywhere.”

“Not physically, no”, Claire says quietly. And then she switches back to a more light-hearted topic, because she’s not quite sure she wants to know how Morgan will react if she doesn’t. “Anyway, I’m glad to know I’ve annoyed you enough that you start to recognize and admit when you mess up on your own now. Never thought I’d see the day!”

“Having a little voice at the back of my mind that sounds suspiciously like you isn’t half as fun as you seem to think it is”, Morgan grumbles, glaring at her.

Claire doesn’t try to hold back her amused laughter this time. “Depends for whom!” she points out. “Anyway, come on, we have to get to class. Unless you want us to manage to be late to our first lecture despite arriving on campus way too early, of course.”

“Like I’d let a ridiculous conversation with you mess with my—”

“—perfect attendance record”, Claire finishes before Morgan can. “Yeah, yeah, I know, spare me the speech!”

She pretends to be annoyed but she’s really not, and she has a hunch Morgan isn’t fooled for one second because – let’s be honest – she’s not putting in much effort into trying to be convincing. Just like she’s not particularly hiding what she’s doing, what this has all been about; she’s not messing with Morgan for the sake of it, she’s rather offering her a distraction, something to hold on to to stay afloat today while they both process the events of the previous night.

And it’s incredible, because if she were to say “I’m here for you, whatever you need” out loud, Morgan would probably push her away the literal next second, but since she’s doing it in a roundabout yet really not subtle way, it’s entirely fine. Claire isn’t quite sure that communicating mostly through things left unsaid is particularly healthy at the end of the day, but hey – they can focus on that at a later date, when no one is stalking Morgan and her stomach isn’t tied into knots with worry on a permanent basis. Right now, what matters is to make it through today.

And then, well, tomorrow can wait.

“We really need to walk into that amphitheater”, Claire insists after checking her watch one more time.

“I know”, Morgan replies, looking at her with the hint of a teasing smile on her lips.

It takes way too long, way too long for Claire to realize that Morgan is messing with her too now. But as soon as she does, she huffs, glares at her with all the annoyance she can muster (it’s not much), and then turns on her heel to head to the amphitheater’s door without a look back.

She has to resist the urge to tug Morgan by the hand after her the entire time it takes them to actually get there. And it’s not just because the sentence Morgan doesn’t like to be touched is running through her head on a loop like it sometimes needs to lest she forget the reminder – it’s also for another, more tricky reason that she prefers to shove way down before she has time to analyze it.

Namely that if she were to take Morgan’s hand, she’s not entirely sure she’d manage to let it go.

The day goes by slowly. Claire is distracted during all of her classes, more focused on Morgan than on what the professors are saying no matter how hard she tries to concentrate, but she’s not particularly looking forward to the end of the last lecture they have to attend either. She’s worried the guy will manage to get close enough to find them and watch them from a distance before she and Morgan can get in the bus, and even more worried he’ll manage to follow them with his car all the way to her apartment. She keeps her concerns to herself, though, because they’re the last thing Morgan needs to hear.

Lunch break is mostly silent that day, a stark opposite to the usual bickering going on. And even though Alex clearly wants to note that Morgan doesn’t seem okay once more, Claire shuts him up with a warning look before he can even try. She knows he’s worried too, though probably not as much as her since he has even less context than she does, but there’s no way that confronting Morgan at the moment would be a good idea. Claire is pretty sure it’d make the tension simmering right beneath the surface explode without a warning, and that would benefit literally no one.

(She’s not quite sure why Alex doesn’t manage to predict how Morgan would react when it’s so incredibly obvious to her, but the thought does give her pause. Since when did she become so good at reading Morgan – when did it start feeling so natural? So instinctive?

She has no idea.

It happened without her realizing is all she knows.)

It’s still light outside when they get out of the main building that evening. Two weeks ago, twilight would have been nearing at that time, but the switch to DST pushed the sunset back an hour for better or for worse and they have no shadows to hide in as they walk. Claire doesn’t like feeling so exposed; sure, they’re surrounded by a sea of other students that act as a decent enough visual barrier, but they’re still too easy to spot to her liking. In the dark, at least, they could have been a bit more stealthy.

The positive counterpoint, though, is that Morgan’s stalker will have a harder time watching without being seen as well, if he’s here looking for them. The lack of shadows to hide in works both ways.

And, sure enough, Claire notices a car eerily similar to the one she saw the guy get out of the previous day parked nearby as she and Morgan head to her usual bus stop, which is roughly in the same direction as Chick ‘n’ Bread. They’re too far for her to see the driver’s face, but she refuses to take any chances. Especially since, with a bit of luck – if it’s him, he won’t have spotted them yet in the middle of all the other students crowding the sidewalk.

“Change of plans”, she mutters as she turns around as casually as she can. Morgan follows suit, no questions asked. “Suspicious car. We’re going to use a more roundabout, but also more secure at the moment, itinerary to make it back to my place.”

“Lead the way”, Morgan mumbles. Her eyes are downcast, and she’s quite obviously having a hard time not turning her head to check whether they’re being followed.

Claire understands that all too well.

Similarly, keeping a normal pace is not as easy as it sounds. Speeding up would be suspicious for sure, though, especially since they’re already moving against the main flow of students now, so they have to refrain from hurrying away.

It becomes easier once Claire makes them take a sharp turn into an alleyway that momentarily hides them from view from the main street. There, it doesn’t matter how fast they walk – all that matters is that it’s too narrow for a car to follow them. So if Morgan’s stalker were on their tail, he’d have to either drive round the block of buildings on their left or get out to keep chasing them on foot.

By the time they make it out to the other end, they’re almost running; and once Claire spots a bus from the line they’re now supposed to take coming towards them, they frankly sprint towards the stop a few dozen yards away. They make it there out of breath but just in time, thankfully, and let themselves relax as the bus swerves back into traffic. There’s no way the guy could know where they are now – they’re safe.

One connection and half an hour later, they finally make it back to Claire’s place, where they plan on studying during most of the evening until they have to go to sleep for once. (Alex did give them yet another look at lunch, a mix of curiosity and worry this time, when Claire told Shaun she wouldn’t be able to go to his place that day and probably on Friday as well, but he thankfully thought better than to comment on it.) What they completely forgot to account for, though, is the fact that – unlike the previous night and, to their relief, this morning – they might cross paths with some of Claire’s roommates when they enter the apartment.

Which is why they both freeze when Jenny looks up from where she’s sprawled on the couch and raises her eyebrows in surprise.

“Yeah, I did think I heard two voices coming from your room last night”, she tells Claire in a way that makes the statement feels loaded somehow. “Glad to know I’m not losing my mind just yet.” Turning to Morgan, she adds: “And I’m guessing you’re the infamous Morgan Reznick? It’s nice to finally put a face on the name. I’m Jenny, Claire’s favorite roommate on my good days – so… all the time.”

“Nice to meet you”, Morgan replies. Both her tone and the too-wide smile on her face ring completely false to Claire, but Jenny doesn’t seem to notice – or care. (Probably care. Jenny is way too good at reading people not to notice.) “But we do have a lot of work to do, so I’m afraid proper introductions will have to wait until a later time.”

Claire can hear the ‘hopefully never’ that Morgan leaves unsaid, and she can’t help but think that it would probably be for the best indeed – she’s pretty sure Jenny would annoy Morgan about as much as Lea does, all things considered. They’re similar enough when it comes to gleefully running on people’s nerves on purpose, after all.

And today would absolutely not be a good day to do that to Morgan. For all parties involved.

Feeling a flare of protectiveness surge inside of her, Claire steps in before Jenny has time to escalate things. “We’ll catch up later”, she promises, “but we really do need to go study now.”

It’s not exactly a lie – they can’t afford to fall behind, especially considering they didn’t go anywhere near a textbook or their notes the previous night –, but it’s true that they could have spared a few minutes to chat right now if they really wanted to. Except, considering the circumstances, it’s the last thing Claire wants to do – so she can only imagine what Morgan’s stance on this is.

Mercifully, Jenny gets the message that they’d prefer to hole themselves up in Claire’s room as soon as possible rather than make small talk. “Have fun studying all night!” she calls after them, the hint of a smile on her lips for some mysterious reason that Claire doesn’t even want to try to decipher. She doesn’t have nearly enough mental space available for that at the moment.

The polite façade drops from Morgan’s face the second the bedroom’s door closes after them. Honestly, Claire is surprised she bothered with it at all, considering she usually has no problem rebuffing people if she doesn’t have a good, ambition-related reason to be nice to them in the first place.

“So your roommate knows who I am”, Morgan notes. It’s a statement that’s aiming for casual, not a question, but Claire can hear the one that hides underneath anyway.

“Well, yeah. We live together, so we do talk about our lives from time to time”, she replies, amused. “And since I’m friends with her, unlike my three other roommates who I’d rather call acquaintances, she’s also the one who patiently listened to me rant about how insufferable you were at the beginning of the year. She was quite… surprised when she realized we had become close.”

“Right”, Morgan mutters. She seems very awkward for a few seconds, as if she was not prepared for what Claire’s answer ended up being or maybe didn’t even expect to get one beyond a simple ‘yes’, but then she turns around and regains her composure while getting her stuff out of her bag. “Just for the record, you were insufferable too at the time.”

“You started it”, Claire reminds her, “and there was no way I was going to just sit back and take it without saying anything. Now, come back to the present and help me move the air mattress to the side for now – unless you’re fine with sitting on my bed to study, like I’m about to do too? Your choice.”

“I prefer the desk”, Morgan decides.

The only place they end up finding for the air mattress is up against the door, considering everywhere else would mean either Morgan wouldn’t be able to sit at the desk or Claire would be half-trapped on her own bed. Sure, they could have also put it in the living room outside for now, but it would have required facing Jenny again and neither of them wants that to happen at the moment, so they don’t even mention it as a possibility.

They stay mostly silent the entire time they spend flipping through their notes or their textbooks to find the proper references, only talking to each other when they’re struggling with something specific and the other one can provide some clarification. The reason why Morgan is staying the night is never mentioned, not even once – truth be told, Claire would have been surprised if the subject had come up, considering that Morgan didn’t say a word about it the entire day.

They don’t go out into the kitchen to eat; Claire goes to grab them some food instead, and pointedly pretends that she doesn’t see Jenny looking at her in a way that screams they’ll be talking about this at a later date, when Morgan isn’t anywhere within earshot. Playing dumb seems like the safest course of action for the time being.

It’s still rather early when they both agree to go to bed, but they didn’t get much sleep the previous night and it’s starting to catch up to them. Claire finds herself unable to switch off her brain once they’re both settled, though – simply because most of her attention is still on Morgan, and Morgan is obviously not falling asleep either. Quite the opposite, even, it would seem.

And Claire gets it. She knows all too well what it’s like to find yourself faced with your pain and your fears once the lights are off and there’s no distraction left to focus on, so she understands exactly what Morgan is going through. Even if she doesn’t have proper context for it. The demons of the night don’t care about what awakens them; they wreak the same kind of havoc in people’s minds no matter what brought them on.

Claire does her best to lie still in her bed while Morgan tosses and turns restlessly on the air mattress, aiming for a repeat of the previous night when she pretended to be asleep so she wouldn’t make Morgan even more uncomfortable on top of her already terrible situation, but it becomes harder and harder as time passes by. It’s killing her to be there, sharing a room with Morgan and listening to her uneven shaky breaths that are halfway to sobs, without doing anything, but no matter how hard she racks her brain, she still has no idea what she could do that would make things better rather than worse.

And then it hits her. The one thing she could try.

She’s not quite sure it’s going to help, but there’s a chance it might and she’s willing to take the risk.

As she maneuvers to get out of her bed without stepping on the air mattress on the ground next to it, she hears Morgan’s breath hitch in surprise before her entire body goes still. Claire doesn’t acknowledge any of that; she simply gets up and goes to blindly rummage through the contents of a shelf in her closet until she finds what she’s looking for. With the lights on, it would have only taken her a second, but she knows with utmost certainty that Morgan would hate being seen at the moment, so keeping the room plunged into darkness was the obvious option here.

Claire turns around, takes a deep breath, and worries at her bottom lip until she finds the right words for what she wants to say.

“The first time my mom truly scared me, I was somewhere around five or six years old”, she starts, hesitant, voice barely a whisper. She doesn’t need to talk any louder, though – she knows Morgan is already hyper-focused on her. “I really thought she was going to kill me. Granted, she wasn’t actually trying then – that came later –, but I got so scared that I ran away from our apartment and didn’t come back for hours. It started raining at some point, hard enough for me to get soaked, but I still kept walking through the streets because it was better than what was waiting for me at home. And then I crossed paths with an old lady who was walking her dog.”

Claire goes to sit on the edge of her bed as a flood of memories rushes back to her mind, way too vivid for something that happened to a five-ish year old but forever engraved in her due to the circumstances surrounding that day. She didn’t know how many details she could still remember – then again, she doesn’t think about it often.

And she’s never told that story to anyone before.

“So that old lady saw me there, a wet, shivering and terrified kid”, Claire continues, “and the only question she asked was whether I was lost. When I said no, she just— She brought me back to her home, made me a hot chocolate to help me warm up, and took my clothes to go dry them so I could put them back on. In the meantime, since she didn’t have anything my size for me to change into, she gave me a blanket to put around my shoulders; her hobby was knitting, apparently, and there were many colorful blankets everywhere in the room I was in. I stayed at her place for a few hours, talking to her a little but mostly playing with her dog, and it was the first time in a long time I could remember feeling so safe. When I left, because eventually I accepted I had to go back whether I wanted to or not, she told me to keep the blanket, that I needed it more than her.”

That blanket is also what she’s holding now, and Claire hugs it close to her chest as she struggles not to let the memories overwhelm her. Looking back, she realizes that this woman had probably understood most of what was going on in her life without her ever saying a word about it, and was also probably way too aware that calling the cops or social services to help a young Black kid could wind up making her situation a lot more terrible rather than doing her any favors.

“She told me I knew where to find her if I ever needed a place to stay again; she even gave me her address on a sheet of paper, but we moved to the trailer where I spent most of my life not long after that – it was on the other end of the city – and I never saw her again. Her blanket stayed with me, though, because it always brought me some comfort and the memory of being safe somewhere for once. I used to wrap it around my shoulders whenever I needed it… and when there was no risk of my mom tearing it away from me, of course. I still have it, after all these years, and I—”

Claire stops, hesitates, then bends down to drape it over the covers already protecting Morgan from the rest of the world. “I think you need it more than I do, tonight”, she murmurs. “I hope it can make you feel safe too. I don’t know what else to do – I don’t know what you went through, I don’t know why you need to hide in my apartment while someone outside is stalking you, but I’m way too familiar with abuse and I want you to know you’ll always have my room as a safe place to come back to whenever you need it. With my blanket as an added bonus if it works for you too.”

Morgan is still frozen and barely breathing when Claire moves back into her bed, but after a while she seems to relax somewhat and the tension that accumulated in the room while Claire was telling her story slowly goes away. It leaves in its wake a new kind of silence – softer, stiller, calmer.

Claire falls asleep to the thought that she might have been able to help after all.

Chapter Text

The sunlight of dawn is streaming in through the curtains when Claire wakes up the next morning, after a night much more resting than the previous one was. Her alarm hasn’t sounded yet and she’s content to lie in bed for the few minutes left until it does, but she still worries about the day that’s about to come. She doesn’t know for how long they can keep safely avoiding Morgan’s stalker; she does know that something will have to happen at some point, though, because running away from a situation that won’t magically resolve itself has only ever gotten people so far.

As she starts to feel her anxiety levels rising, Claire decides to get out bed already after all. Busying herself has proven time and again to be the best way to keep her dark thoughts at bay, so that’s exactly what she’s going to do now too.

She rolls around with a yawn and begins to prop herself up on an elbow, intent on wriggling around until she can swing her legs over the head of the bed to avoid the air mattress, but she stops mid-gesture when her eyes catch sight of Morgan clutching her blanket close to her chest in her sleep. Knowing that the thing that helped her feel safe for so many years is now apparently having the same effect on Morgan makes something warm spread beneath her ribs; she’s not quite sure why exactly, but the feeling isn’t unpleasant and she decides not to overanalyze it for now. She has more important things to focus on.

Besides, the moment gets ruined just a few seconds later, when her alarm goes off and Morgan instantly wakes up with a start.

Claire resumes getting out of bed then, rushing to do something before she can be caught staring and things take an uncomfortable turn. She opens her closet and grabs her clothes for the day with the intention to head to the bathroom directly, but Morgan’s voice behind her stops her in her tracks.

“You said you go to a shelter on Thursdays. So I’m guessing tonight as well?”

Claire turns around to face Morgan. “Yes”, she answers without thinking about it, although she quickly realizes that she’ll probably cancel today for once. The days had all blurred together this week and she’d completely forgotten that they’d reached Thursday already, but she doesn’t want to leave Morgan alone, even for a few hours. She’s still curious as to what prompted the question, though. “Why?”

“Would it be possible for me to come with you?”

Claire almost asks for a confirmation that her ears haven’t betrayed her, just in case. Morgan? Being willing to ask for help? It sounds too good to be true, and yet…

“Of course”, she answers, maybe a little too enthusiastically considering the circumstances, but she doesn’t manage to rein it in fully. “It’s on the other side of town so I usually go there directly from campus, if that’s fine with you?”

Morgan nods. “Sure. On an unrelated note, can I borrow some of your clothes? I don’t think mine will survive a third day unscathed.”

“I wouldn’t have a problem with that, but I’m pretty sure you’re too tall for my clothes to fit you”, Claire remarks, pulling a face. “Just wait a second, I’m going to go ask Jenny. You two are a lot more similar in height and build.”

She leaves her room before Morgan can protest and heads straight to the kitchen, considering Jenny’s voice is coming from there. She finds her roommate alone and, from the looks of it, arguing with the coffee maker out loud.

“Are you expecting an answer?” she asks, amused, as she leans in the door frame and crosses her arms over her chest.

Jenny laughs. “No, but it feels better than to keep it all to myself. Also, good morning to you too – how was your night?”

“Too short”, Claire grumbles. “Hey, could Morgan borrow some of your clothes for the day?”

Jenny raises a questioning eyebrow. “Should I ask why she needs them?”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t”, Claire says truthfully. “Look, it’s complicated and not my place to explain. Just… Please?”

Jenny shrugs, though she also narrows her eyes at Claire and fixes her with a piercing stare. “Yeah, of course. You two can go raid my closet if you want; my door’s unlocked. Just get my clothes back to me at some point, that’s all I’m asking for.”

“Thank you”, Claire breathes out before she turns on her heel and walks back to her room to get Morgan.

That’s one thing she doesn’t have to worry about anymore, at least.

Morgan seems… off during the entire day. She barely participates in class, which is very unusual for her, and she generally doesn’t seem to be paying much attention to her surroundings. To the point where Alex asks her the same question three times at lunch and Morgan doesn’t even seem to hear it.

“Earth to Morgan”, Alex says once he’s tired of repeating himself, waving a hand in front of her face to get her attention. “Did you fall asleep with your eyes wide open and your arms still moving by some miracle? Because if you managed to unlock the first human superpower somehow, I’m begging you to share your secret. It’d make surviving med school a lot easier!”

“Why do you make incorrect statements on purpose so often?” Shaun asks. Their table was overall so quiet today that he didn’t even bother using his noise-cancelling earphones for once.

Alex thinks about it for a second. “I find it entertaining”, he answers. “Not being serious all the time is what’s allowing me to keep my sanity here. I’d have lost it long ago otherwise.”

“Oh, really? What makes you so sure you still have it?” Claire shoots back, fighting really hard not to smile as she says that.

Morgan’s annoyed huff cuts them off. “I’m surrounded by children.”

Claire’s first instinct is to point out that she usually would have joined in on teasing Alex in a heartbeat, but she manages to hold the words back before they make it past her lips. If she were in Morgan’s shoes, she would have probably snapped long before that already, so she understands all too well why their customary banter is not appreciated at all this time.

Alex, however, doesn’t have nearly enough context to get it too.

“Was that a Lion King reference?” he asks jokingly. “Morgan Reznick, have you been hiding your knowledge of pop culture all these months? Though it’s still not perfect, for the record – the actual line is ‘I’m surrounded by idiots’, not children.”

Claire kicks his shin under the table, but it’s too late. She knows what Alex is trying to do because she often does the same thing; he’s worried about Morgan’s odd behavior so he wants to lighten the mood to provide a distraction from whatever thoughts are currently running through her head, but devolving to silly topics is not the way to go about it. Not with Morgan.

“You know what, you may be right – ‘idiots’ does work better”, Morgan bites out icily. “So now, do me a favor, keep your idiotic jokes to yourself and leave me alone!”

Alex looks at her with shock written all over his face for a good few seconds before he manages to snap out of it. Honestly, Claire feels bad for him; he was never really on the receiving end of Morgan’s venom before, more accustomed to biting words that hide a secret fondness than to a fully mean tone like Claire used to deal with, so the transition must be disconcerting to say the least.

“Woah there – easy, tiger”, he finally replies, more soothing than annoyed or pissed off. He sounds like he’s trying to approach a wild animal without spooking it or ending up bitten, and Claire finds that comparison strangely accurate at the moment. “What’s up with you today? You’ve been off all morning. Does it have anything to do—”

Claire doesn’t need to kick him this time – he cuts himself off before she can even begin to react. He seemed to realize mid-sentence that mentioning Morgan’s outburst of the previous morning or asking about the reason why it happened again would hardly be a good idea.

Shaun, on the other hand, absolutely doesn’t catch what’s going on, what’s at play in the things left unsaid here. “Morgan has been significantly quieter in class these last two days”, he says with way too much enthusiasm as he looks up from his psychology textbook, apparently eager to put what he’s learned in that class to good use. “She’s also been more irritable, especially with Alex, and she didn’t provide an explanation for either of these behaviors, which indicates—”

“Shaun”, Claire tries to cut in, but it’s always nearly impossible to get him to stop once he’s begun trying to come up with a diagnosis. Even though this is probably less of a diagnosis and more of a ‘psychology classes are helping him understand human behavior better and he’s finally in a situation to put that to good use, even though it’s at the worst possible time’ kind of deal.

“—it must be something she’s trying to ignore—”

“Shaun!”

“—or wants to keep a secret from us, which would be consistent with—”

“SHAUN!” Claire nearly shouts this time, finally startling him into listening to her. It has to be the harshest she’s been with him since they met. “Psychoanalyzing a friend who didn’t ask you to do that is not a very nice thing to do”, she explains, softening again as soon as he cuts himself off. “I think everyone would be a lot more comfortable if you stopped.”

“Oh”, Shaun simply says, but Claire doesn’t miss the way his hands are starting to get anxiously restless.

“It’s okay. Your heart was in the right place; no one is mad at you”, she says with a smile, hoping it’ll be enough for him not to beat himself up too much for his faux pas.

Contrary to what she just said, though, Morgan looks furious, but since pointing that out wouldn’t help Shaun in any way, Claire decides it’s best if she just doesn’t acknowledge it. Instead, because it’s killing her to see her friends fighting each other like that – especially when she understands both sides all too well –, Claire turns to Morgan and adds: “They’re just trying to help.”

“Yes, and it’s doing the exact opposite”, Morgan retorts through gritted teeth.

Claire nods. “I think they know that now, so they’ll stop. Right, guys?”

“Of course”, Alex says.

But he looks inquisitively at Claire for just a little too long, and she doesn’t quite manage to hide the worry that mirrors his in her own eyes.

Morgan’s classes end an hour earlier than Claire’s do on Thursdays this semester. It doesn’t usually matter, since they always go their separate ways those evenings, but this time it means Morgan has to wait for her so they can leave for the shelter together. They agree to meet in the library, where Morgan spends a few hours every Thursday as a general rule anyway, and Claire rushes there as soon as the lecture she’s attending is over.

She doesn’t really need to hurry – they have more than enough time ahead of them –, but being away from Morgan has been hard for her ever since they left Chick ‘n’ Bread two nights ago. She knows it’s not rational – nothing is going to happen to Morgan while she’s in the school’s library surrounded by dozens of other students –, but knowing that she’s being irrational and shaking the feeling away are two vastly different things. And she’s completely failing at the second one.

“Are you ready to go?” she asks once she finds the table Morgan is sitting at.

“Just one book to check out and it’s all good for me.”

Ten minutes later, they leave the building through a side exit that’s closer to the bus stop they need to get to this time than the main entrance is, and Claire feels noticeably more relaxed than the previous day. The shelter is on the other side of the city compared to Chick ‘n’ Bread and her apartment, so barring some truly unfortunate circumstances, they should be safe tonight. Morgan’s stalker shouldn’t be looking for them on this side of the campus.

The bus ride is relatively quiet. Morgan is brimming with nervous energy that she seems determined not to acknowledge, because of course she is, but Claire is more focused on trying to figure out how she’ll introduce her to the other volunteers than on getting her to talk it out. She’s never brought a friend before and she’s not quite sure how it’s going to go, especially if someone a little too perceptive starts asking regular yet targeted questions that’ll make Morgan close off immediately.

For all the scenarios she mentally went through, though, there’s no way she could have predicted what actually happens.

“Hi guys”, she greets everyone once they arrive in the room of the shelter where the staff and the volunteers gather in between their different tasks. “Meet my friend Morgan. She’s—” She hesitates for a second, still not sure how to introduce Morgan exactly, but in the end it turns out she doesn’t need to do it at all. Because Morgan apparently planned her approach from start to finish, way better than Claire ever did.

“We’re in med school together”, Morgan explains. “Claire told me about this place recently and I wanted to come see what everyone here is doing. I don’t know if I’d ever have time to volunteer like she does – I have no idea how she even survives with the weekly schedule that she has on top of our classes –, but I figured there were still some things I could do to help? I mean, if I knew the topic better, maybe I’d be able to provide resources in the future if I meet someone who seems to be struggling with an abusive partner? It’s the bare minimum, I guess, but I’m not educated enough for that at the moment.”

What surprises Claire the most isn’t even the fact that Morgan managed to manipulate the staff into wanting to give her a ton and a half of resources in the span of less than a minute, without a single word that could make anyone suspect she has a history with abuse herself. No, what truly surprises Claire is the total change in Morgan’s behavior compared to the rest of the day.

Gone is the distracted and snappy student who spent her time looking a million miles away since they set foot on campus in the morning. In her stead now stands the absolute opposite: a lively, cheerful young woman who charms everyone into wanting to be her friend as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

And Claire thought she was the one with rather decent acting abilities.

She stands corrected.

She also didn’t expect things to play out this way… but now that she thinks about it, it makes perfect sense. Morgan asking for help directly, from strangers no less, would have been odd to say the least.

They lose sight of each other quickly after that. Claire falls into the routine of her usual tasks, which require all of her focus, while Morgan is whisked away by another volunteer, and they only end up back together when it’s time for them to leave. Claire is exhausted and emotionally drained by that point; she always is on Thursdays, after spending three hours hearing sometimes unfathomable stories and helping out countless women, and tonight is no exception.

“Did you get the information you came here for?” she asks Morgan on their way back to the bus stop.

“I know what I wanted to know, yes”, Morgan answers cryptically.

“So, what now?”

“Now, I need to take a much needed shower.”

Understanding that Morgan isn’t willing or intent on sharing her plans to handle her stalker for the time being, Claire doesn’t fight the transition to small talk. “Less than an hour left to wait”, she calculates. “Although, I’m starving. Can we stop to get dinner on our way to my apartment? That’s what I usually do.”

“You can if you want”, Morgan replies. “I’m going back to my place.”

Claire stops dead in her tracks in the middle of the sidewalk. “You what?”

“I’m going back to my place”, Morgan repeats patiently. “He doesn’t know where we are right now; there’s no way he could have followed us here from the school without us noticing him. And I need a change of clothes, so it’s the perfect time.”

Claire has to admit, these are two solid arguments. Solid enough that she doesn’t seem to be able to come up with a single good, rational reason why Morgan being alone tonight feels so wrong.

Emphasis on rational. Because when it comes to emotional reactions, well, the fear gripping her heart at the idea of leaving Morgan’s side right now is more than enough in her book.

“What about tomorrow morning?”

“Claire, it takes me less than ten minutes to go from my apartment – which, let me remind you, is directly on campus  – to the amphitheater where we’ll have our first lecture of the day. I’ll be surrounded by people the entire time. I’ll be fine.”

Claire exhales slowly to release the tension in her body, then resumes walking alongside Morgan. She knows it would be pointless to keep fighting what she can already tell is a losing battle – she’ll just have to deal with the fact that she can’t make Morgan stay with her against her will.

“Okay. Okay, you’re going back to your place. But I’m at least escorting you there.”

She expects Morgan to tell her it’s not necessary, or to poke fun at her for being so overprotective, or both, but instead Morgan just nods. “If you want.”

And anyone else might miss it, but Claire knows her too well by now not to notice the hint of relief lacing her words. Despite the confident way she’s acting, Morgan clearly doesn’t feel as safe as she wants Claire to believe.

What would happen to her if her stalker managed to corner her?

Who is he even?

Claire has thought of a million scenarios by now, her mind trying to fill in the numerous blanks in the story of Morgan that she hasn’t be told, but none of them ever seem to make sense in the end. They’re only eighteen, damn it! What could have already happened to Morgan and at what age to turn her into who she is now – someone with no trust left to give, hiding her pain and her past under a mask of arrogance to keep everyone at arm’s length; a woman with a stalker who terrifies her, a woman whose reactions are consistent with a history of physical abuse?

Claire has no clue. Strictly none.

All she knows is that she won’t let anything more happen to her now.

Claire wakes up earlier than usual the next day. She didn’t sleep well during the night anyway, too agitated to rest properly; she knows she’s being quite paranoid, especially since Morgan was a hundred percent fine when she left her behind a locked door less than twelve hours ago, but she can’t help it. She won’t relax until she has Morgan alive and well in front of her eyes.

She barely eats any breakfast, too worried to be hungry, and takes a bus early enough to arrive in front of the amphitheater’s door with twenty-five minutes to spare. She rounds the corner to hide from view, preferring to avoid the inquisitive stares and slightly too knowing questions she knows she’ll get from Alex when he gets there if he spots her pacing up and down like a caged lion, and then she waits.

And waits some more.

Because, five minutes before the lesson is supposed to start, Morgan is still nowhere to be seen.

Shaun and Alex are already inside the amphitheater – she saw them both walk through the door over the course of the last five minutes, after she stopped pacing and started basically just keeping watch from around the corner –, but Morgan isn’t there. Morgan isn’t there and Claire is definitely freaking out.

Four minutes.

Claire starts pacing again, but in front of the amphitheater’s door this time.

Three minutes.

Morgan has never been late before. Not once. She’s too proud of her perfect attendance record to voluntarily taint it.

Two—

Claire starts to breathe again when she spots Morgan walking into the corridor from the door leading to the staircase.

“You’re almost late”, she remarks when Morgan arrives next to her.

“I know. I used a roundabout way to get from my apartment to this building, just in case, and I didn’t anticipate just how much additional time it would take.”

“I noticed”, Claire mutters.

Morgan looks at her curiously. “If you were that worried, you could have sent me a message. I would have replied and you wouldn’t have needed to freak out that much.”

Claire feels her cheeks grow warmer. She could have indeed done that – it was actually her first thought – but she didn’t want Morgan to have to deal with reassuring her on top of everything else, so she refrained from giving in to her instincts. She would have definitely done that, though, had Morgan not shown up within the next minute.

“We’re going to be late”, she says instead of replying.

Morgan opens the door and walks in, Claire on her heel, right as their professor is connecting her computer to the video projector. “We’re not”, Morgan points out.

But they are, indeed, arriving just in time. Claire wastes no time to go take the seat next to Shaun, which is free as usual as most the rest of the front row, and Morgan sits down next to her on the other side. Claire doesn’t comment on it, but it’s the first time that has happened since the beginning of the year – Morgan usually takes great pride in sitting on her own on purpose. She does, however, wonder what could be the reason behind the sudden change.

“We’re going back to Chick ‘n’ Bread tonight”, Morgan whispers just before the professor starts speaking and the class falls quiet.

And just like that, Claire’s pulse immediately goes back up with alarming speed.

“What?” she hisses, low enough that no one else will hear. “Morgan, that’s the one place where we know for sure he can find you!”

But Morgan pretends she didn’t hear her, leaving her stuck with her own thoughts for the two hours that the class lasts. Her head spins the entire time; she takes detailed notes as usual but doesn’t retain a single word, too troubled to be able to focus on anything other than what has gotten into Morgan now. Out of all the results she expected their time at the shelter to lead to, newfound recklessness was not one of them. At all.

As soon as the professor signals the end of her class, Claire turns to Morgan again and says: “You can’t be serious.”

She gets a falsely innocent question in return. “About?”

Before speaking her mind about this, Claire switches her attention to Shaun, who is not-so-patiently waiting for her since they usually walk to their next class together. “Go ahead”, she tells him. “We’ll catch up in a minute, but I need to talk to Morgan first.”

She feels bad for being so distant with him these last few days, she really does, but Morgan’s safety is her number one priority and she unfortunately can’t be everywhere at once. She does make a promise to herself to make it up to him as soon as she can, though.

The moment he’s out of earshot, she goes back to trying to make Morgan understand that she’s lost her mind. “Chick ‘n’ Bread is the number one place that isn’t safe for you right now!”

“I’m not going to spend my entire life running. It’s already been two days; I’m done. He’s trying to scare me? Well, he won’t succeed.”

Claire grits her teeth. “Fine. I can’t stop you anyway. But how about we at least go somewhere else?”

Morgan shakes her head and stares straight ahead as they start walking side by side. “You know that no one asked you to act as my bodyguard, right?”

Claire grabs Morgan by the sleeve and pulls her to the side with her so they can stand face to face next to the wall, while the rest of the students keep walking along. She doesn’t even think before she acts – it’s pure instinct fueled by a mix of distress and anger that makes her do it.

“Correct; no one asked me. But you seem to forget that I was there on Tuesday. I saw the fear in your eyes when I showed you the picture of the guy stalking you. I saw what it did to you, paralyzing you to the point you couldn’t even speak. Am I supposed to forget it all and let you run head first into a dangerous situation now?!”

Claire’s question seems to stun Morgan. She’s staring at her with wide eyes, as if she couldn’t quite figure out the reason behind such an outburst, and it’s enough for Claire to soften again.

“I care about you, you idiot”, she says quietly. “And I don’t want to see you get hurt. So could you at least explain to me why you’re so adamant we go back there tonight?”

Morgan hesitates for a moment. She doesn’t break eye contact, though, so Claire can see the million different emotions that play out in her mind in such a short amount of time. And what most of them tell her is that Morgan isn’t used to having someone stick to her side for better or for worse.

But, well, she’ll have to admit that it’s her new normal now, because Claire doesn’t plan on going anywhere.

(To think that, six months ago, she wanted nothing more than to be rid of her permanently… Things sure have changed since then.)

Eventually, Morgan does reply, but not in the way Claire was expecting her to.

“Do you trust me?”

Claire distinctly remembers asking Morgan the same question on Christmas Eve, distinctly remembers the answer she got, but now that their roles are reversed – and considering the context of their conversation –, she’s not quite sure she can find the best way to express what’s going on in her head.

“I trust you as a general rule”, she says slowly. “But I’m not sure I trust you to make the best choices to keep yourself safe? I mean, sometimes, we’re our own worst enemy, and right now you’re worrying me.”

“I know what I’m doing”, Morgan assures her. “And I’m going to Chick ‘n’ Bread tonight – with or without you.”

Claire huffs with frustration. “Like I’d let you go alone. Have you listened to a word I said so far?”

“Good! Then it’s settled.”

Morgan resumes walking to their next class without waiting for an answer, and Claire hurries to catch up to her while wondering what the hell she’s missing. There has to be a bigger picture here, but whatever it is… she fails to see it.

All she knows is that she still doesn’t understand Morgan’s decision.

The surprises keep coming.

First, Claire notices that Morgan is back to her usual level of participating in class. She acts perfectly calm and collected, as if the last two days never existed. It doesn’t make sense.

Then, at lunch, she apologizes to Shaun and Alex for the way she talked to them the previous day, efficiently flooring them all – Claire included. It has to be the first time since the beginning of the year that something like that happens.

Overall, honestly, Morgan seems to be doing just fine. Considering that she plans on basically throwing herself into the lion’s den later that day, Claire doesn’t get it at all, but she does her best not to show to the others how baffled she is. She knows Alex would immediately zero in on her if she did, and she doesn’t want to make this even more complicated than it already is.

She does, however, want to make sure that they make it to Chick ‘n’ Bread in one piece at least. So, knowing full well that Morgan will be pissed at her for what she’s about to do, Claire decides to enlist Alex for help, even though she does so under the guise of something else entirely.

“Are you doing anything tonight?” she asks him when a lull in the discussions going on around the table gives her the opportunity to.

“You mean besides spending six hours with my head buried in a book or another, like every other night since med school started? No, why?”

“Do you want to come to Chick ‘n’ Bread with Morgan and me? Lea has a shift on Fridays and I know you’ve been dying to meet her for a while.”

It’s true. He’s the only one in their group who has never even seen her, and he’s made comments several times upon hearing stories about her – especially when they involve her uncanny ability to annoy Morgan – that he’d like to witness that one day. He never expressly asked to accompany them, though, and Claire never suggested it before, so it never happened until now.

“Sure!” he replies enthusiastically, while Morgan looks daggers at Claire who pointedly ignores her. Safety first.

“Great!” she exclaims. “We’ll leave as soon as classes are over.”

“I look forward to it”, he says honestly.

Claire doesn’t, on the other hand, but it’s for a different reason entirely. The reason in question being a distinct feeling that this evening will be a wild ride from start to finish.

(And, as it turns out, she was right. She just had no idea exactly how wild of a ride it would be.)

Chapter Text

Morgan gives her the silent treatment all afternoon, and during the entire walk from the school to the café-restaurant that evening. Claire doesn’t fight it; she expected to get such a reaction before she even asked Alex if he wanted to come to the café-restaurant with them anyway – Morgan isn’t exactly known for taking it well when other people mess with her plans, after all –, so she just takes it in stride. What she finds more surprising is the fact that Alex doesn’t seem to realize that something is off between them, but then again, he spends enough time asking questions about Lea that Morgan’s icy attitude could very well be attributed to that fact alone. Even though that’s not the case at all.

Still, once they arrive at Chick ‘n’ Bread, it becomes… a lot more obvious that Morgan is even less willing to play nice than usual and barely tolerating Alex’s presence tonight. Because the table she and Claire almost always sit at only has two seats yet she still heads there without a single moment of hesitation, leaving him to trail behind awkwardly and grab a third chair from a nearby table, and that simple action is enough to make her intentions very clear. Honestly, Claire feels bad for putting Alex in that situation – especially since he doesn’t know, and won’t get to know, why Morgan is so pissed off at the moment –, but what’s done is done and she can focus on making it up to him at a later date. For now, they made it to the café-restaurant safely, and that’s all that matters.

Well, almost all that matters.

Because there’s also a less optimistic prospect; namely, that Alex is way too nice and polite to stay here where he’s not wanted once he’s gotten to chat with Lea for a little while, so he’ll probably be gone with the next half hour or so.

Which means that all Claire can do now is hope that Morgan’s stalker won’t find them when they leave, because there won’t be anyone here to help them if he shows up before they’re safely in a bus heading to her place. And even if he were to appear while they’re still sitting there… she has a feeling Morgan wouldn’t escape through the back door this time.

(She could tell Alex the truth. She could. But she knows she’d lose Morgan’s trust for good if she did, and she also knows that all this would lead to is Morgan putting herself herself in harm’s way without bringing anyone with her as backup next time. In short: this would be making the whole situation a lot worse rather than better in the not-so-long run.)

Lea arrives a few minutes later and heads over to them the moment she spots the third person at their table, before she even goes to the staff’s room to get into her work clothes. “Hi! I see you guys have some company tonight?”

“I’m Alex Park. Nice to finally meet you”, Alex immediately introduces himself. “I’ve heard… a lot about you. I was getting curious!”

“All of it good, I suppose”, Lea says, glancing at Morgan and laughing.

Alex grins. “Of course”, he answers, playing along.

“I have to change first”, Lea tells him, “but then I have to manage the register for a while tonight, so I’ll have time to chat. I want to know how accurate your idea of me is based on what you’ve been told so far!”

“Deal”, Alex replies before Lea finally does head to the staff’s room.

Morgan looks about ready to kill at least one of them.

Claire mostly ignores that, though, because, not even thirty seconds later, her phone vibrates in her pocket twice in quick succession. With proof that Lea is nothing if not perceptive and smart.

Lea: is there a particular reason why Alex is here with you two tonight?

Lea: you guessed it, i’m not so subtly asking if it has anything to do with the guy who was stalking Morgan on Tuesday

Kind of

I felt safer walking here with him

He’s a former cop

Though Morgan wasn’t thrilled I made him come along

Just so you know, he has no idea what happened on Tuesday

Lea: mmmh ‘kay got it

The atmosphere stays loaded after that, all of them sitting in silence, until Lea comes back out of the staff’s room less than two minutes later and waves at Alex to get him to join her at the register. He immediately gets up with an audible sigh of relief, glad to escape Morgan’s death stare for a little while, and Claire gets it. She really gets it. Even though that leaves her as the only one being glared at for the time being.

Something that, truth be told, is getting really old and really annoying.

“Are you going to talk to me at all tonight?” she asks pointedly, unable to keep from rolling her eyes as she does so.

“You couldn’t stop yourself from meddling in my life just a little more, could you?!” Morgan bites out.

“I wanted to make sure we got here safely. And we did.”

“Wonderful. But now, as long as Alex is here, Jack is not going to show up. He could spot someone who screams ‘cop’ from a mile away, and I’ve never met someone who screams ‘cop’ more than Alex does!”

It takes a second for Claire’s brain to catch up. It’s the first time Morgan has ever named her stalker in front of her, for starters, but also—

“Wait a second— What do you— You want him to show up?!”

“I’d prefer if this didn’t drag on until next week, yes indeed”, Morgan retorts.

“You have a plan”, Claire suddenly realizes. “A very specific plan.”

“Yes, I thought that was obvious”, Morgan says evenly. “And no, that plan doesn’t involve you.”

“What are you going to do?!”

“Settle this once and for all.”

Claire feels her hands start to get clammy. This doesn’t sound good. It doesn’t sound good at all.

“Morgan, I don’t know what you have in mind, but—”

“How much do you want to bet he’s trying to get her to tell him why Shaun had our coats Wednesday morning?” Morgan asks, pointing to Alex and Lea with her chin. 

Claire wants to scream. She wants to shake Morgan, tell her that this is serious, that she’s being way too dismissive about something so potentially dangerous, but she knows it would have literally no effect at all: whenever Morgan makes a decision, getting her to change her mind is outright impossible. So Claire is going to have to deal with that, no matter how much it scares her.

“He won’t get anything out of Lea”, she breathes out slowly. “Now, on a more pressing matter – since I can’t imagine a plan that isn’t reckless at the moment –, be careful. And let me help.”

“I don’t understand why she wouldn’t tell him what happened. Or why she didn’t tell Shaun”, Morgan says, completely ignoring the second half of Claire’s answer.

“Because, no matter what you think of Lea, she’s a good person who understands the concept of a private life”, Claire retorts with an annoyed huff. “Even if you’ve been nothing but an asshole to her since you met her.”

Morgan looks fully unconvinced, but she still drops the subject without a fight. “Let’s get to work”, she decides instead, opening her bag and getting her binder out as if this were any other night.

Faced with no other choice – besides sitting there and letting her anxiety spike up, which would be even worse –, Claire reluctantly does the same thing on her end. She can’t focus, though, too worried about whatever Morgan has in mind to be able to read more than two sentences at a time without getting distracted, and by the way Morgan hardly turns the pages of her own notes, it seems they’re both having trouble retaining anything right now. And it’s hardly surprising, considering the circumstances.

They still keep this up, stubbornly acting like everything is business as usual, until Alex walks back over to them less than half an hour later with a smile on his face and a goodbye on his lips – exactly as Claire expected him to.

“I should be going”, he tells them somewhat apologetically, though it’s clear he’s mostly talking to Claire and not Morgan. “Lea is great, we had a nice chat and some fun anecdotes to share, but I need to study too and I don’t do well with obnoxiously loud background music.”

“Okay”, Claire answers, managing to mold her face into a smile in spite of how tense she feels. “See you on Monday, then!”

“Have a nice weekend”, Morgan mutters without looking at him.

He shoots her a curious look but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge how hostile she’s been the entire evening, probably all too aware that’d only make things worse, and then leaves the café-restaurant after a detour to the register to exchange a few final words with Lea. Morgan, whose back is to the front door as usual, turns her head to watch him go; she visibly relaxes in her seat as soon as he’s out of sight, while Claire’s heart, on the other hand, picks up its pace even more.

They’re on their own now.

And she feels like they’re in the middle of the calm before the storm.

It’s another half hour before the guy – Jack, since apparently that’s his name – appears behind the front window, though Claire suspects he was there in his car for a while but didn’t show his face until he was positive Alex wasn’t going to return. She’s not sure whether she should signal his presence to Morgan or if it’s better she abstains, but the choice is immediately taken out of her hands; apparently, she didn’t do a very good job keeping a poker face.

“Finally”, Morgan mumbles upon noticing how tense Claire becomes all of a sudden.

“Don’t do anything stupid”, Claire pleads, hoping that the sight of her stalker will knock some sense into Morgan again.

She has no such luck.

Instead, Morgan takes a deep breath, turns around in her seat, and looks him straight in the eye while Claire tries to regain control of her heartbeat. This is not happening. This is not happening.

She feels like the few seconds during which Morgan seems to be issuing a challenge of sorts to Jack last forever. She’s frozen in her seat, with no idea how to react, and it only gets worse when Morgan grabs her bag as she looks back over to her and tells her to stay put.

This can’t be happening.

“Morgan—” she calls out, unable to mask the panic in her voice, but Morgan doesn’t acknowledge her. Instead, she gets up, her eyes burning bright with determination, and Claire suddenly realizes that this worries her even more than the fear did three days ago. Morgan on a warpath is a force to be reckoned with, yes, but the disregard for her own safety as she insists that she doesn’t want nor need any backup also makes it quite panic-inducing.

Except Morgan doesn’t get out of the café-restaurant to confront her stalker.

She walks towards the restroom instead.

Claire is thoroughly confused.

She’s thoroughly confused for all of thirty seconds until she realizes that Morgan isn’t heading to the restroom, but to the storage room instead.

She springs up from her chair and follows after her with hurried steps.

In the ten seconds it takes her to go from her seat to the storage room where she expects to see Morgan walking out through the service door, Claire has time to imagine a lot of things. A lot of things.

None of them involved the sight of a perfectly calm Morgan inserting a magazine into the gun in her hand.

“What the hell”, she chokes out before she can stop herself.

Morgan looks up at her, vaguely annoyed. “Claire, I told you to stay out of this. It’ll be best for everyone if you do.”

A dream. This has to be a dream – or rather, a nightmare. There’s no way she’s actually standing there, watching Morgan handling a pistol – or is it a revolver? Claire doesn’t even know the difference – like she’s done that all her life, seconds before she obviously plans on confronting her stalker with it. A pistol that—

“Did you have that… that thing in your bag all day?!” Claire asks, incredulous and more than a little scared now.

“Well I didn’t just find it, as you can easily guess”, Morgan replies absent-mindedly as she checks something about the gun; probably that it’ll work as intended, but Claire has no idea what’s going on because she hates firearms with a burning passion. “It was not loaded, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m worried about the fact that you have a gun, period!”

“It’s legal. I have both a license and a permit.”

“That doesn’t change anything!” Claire nearly shouts. She feels like she’s losing her mind. “You were in school all day with a gun in your bag, Morgan, damn it, don’t you realize— Wait, you only had it with you today, right? That’s why you wanted to go back to your place yesterday?”

“Yes. That, and I didn’t lie about needing a change of clothes.”

Morgan is too calm. Way too calm to Claire’s liking. Way too calm considering the circumstances.

“And what are you going to do with it now, huh? What’s that grand plan of yours?!”

“I’m not going to kill him, if that’s where your mind went”, Morgan answers, her tone verging on condescending. “I’m not even going to hurt him. I am going to scare the shit out of him, though. Because either I send a message now, in a big way, or this never stops – and we both know it.”

“This is insane”, Claire breathes out. “You can’t just— You can’t just threaten someone with a gun in the middle of the street and think it won’t have any consequences!”

Morgan switches her focus to the service door before she answers. “I won’t be in the middle of the street; I’ll be in the middle of a dark alley where no one will see us. Now, do me a favor and stay here. I don’t want to risk him seeing you and trying to hurt you to get to me.”

As far as Claire is concerned, that’s the first sensible thing Morgan has said all day.

But now, she doesn’t know what more she could say in return to stop her; she doesn’t know how it’s possible to stop someone who’s intent on walking out into an alley with a gun to confront her stalker in the first place.

(Does she even know Morgan at all?)

“You came with me to the shelter yesterday, and your conclusion was that you should take matters into your own hands? Seriously?” she tries as a last, desperate attempt.

“Actually, yes”, Morgan answers, her hand on the handle now. “I heard a bit too much about women hiding and filling out mountains of paperwork for legal actions that didn’t work. Whether that path would be worth it or not is what I wanted to know; it’s the reason why I went with you in the first place, and I got my answer. My decision was easy to make after that.”

And with these words, she’s out the door, without waiting any longer.

Claire realizes then that she’s shaking. It’s all too much at once; she feels like the world is crashing down around her and she’s completely unable to stop it, no matter how hard she tries. Morgan’s behavior during the entire day suddenly makes sense to her – her peace was that of a woman who’s settled on what to do about her current terrible situation – and she wishes she could go back to when she didn’t understand it, when she didn’t just watch Morgan walk out a door with a gun in her hand and felt more powerless than ever before in her life.

She finally gets her feet to move just before said door slams back shut again. In the middle of the chaos in her mind, the only coherent thought she manages to isolate is that she’s going to follow Morgan outside in a second, but before she can do that, she needs to find something to keep the door ajar. (How she miraculously manages to remember that it can’t be opened from the outside despite everything else going on at the moment, Claire doesn’t know, but she’s glad that she does: they’d be locked out otherwise, which would be especially terrible if they needed to retreat quickly in the near future.)

She blindly reaches for something hard and heavy from the shelf nearest to her then bends down to place it against the frame, ensuring the metal door won’t be able to close completely after her. Once that’s taken care of, she intends to rush after Morgan without wasting any more time, but the sudden sound of a male voice stops her in her tracks.

Shit. Shit.

It’s too late.

Whatever Morgan wanted to set into motion, it’s already started.

So Claire stays right where she is. She knows she’d be putting Morgan into more danger rather than less if she walked out after her and revealed her presence now; besides, the only advantage they have left on their side is the element of surprise, and it’d be completely stupid to ruin it for no good reason.

The only thing she does do is take one step to the side so she can follow what’s happening outside, through the gap created by the hinges between the door and the frame. She needs to see the events as they unfold if she hopes to be of any use to Morgan at all.

And then she listens.

“So that’s how you managed to disappear the other day”, Jack is saying, after walking a few steps into the alley from the street where he kept watch until then. “A side exit. Clever. Then again, you’ve always been smart.”

“Glad we’re on the same page on this”, Morgan answers. Her voice is cold, almost emotionless. “I am smart. But you’re not, because I clearly remember telling you I was done with you nine months ago. And you should have listened.”

“Come on”, he coos. “Don’t you miss me by now?”

He sounds awfully confident for someone who’s facing a woman with a gun in her hand, Claire thinks, but then she realizes that Morgan isn’t backlit like he is: the timer in the storage room switched off the light before Morgan even opened the door and Claire didn’t turn it back on – it was the last thing on her mind in their current situation –, so Morgan is hidden in the shadows of the alley for the time being. Jack hasn’t seen the gun yet.

He does see it, though, when Morgan takes two steps forward and raises her arms to aim it at his chest. Her hands are steady; she obviously knows exactly what she’s doing, and fear flickers on his face for a second – clear enough that Claire can see it even from where she’s standing behind the door.

“I don’t miss you”, Morgan says, articulating each word with force. “Now leave me alone.”

Jack recovers quickly. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asks with a mocking edge to his voice. “You think I’m afraid of you? You and I both know you’re not going to shoot me. You’re too reasonable for that.”

“Are you really so sure?” Morgan challenges him, switching her aim from his chest to his left knee. “I wouldn’t kill you, you’re right; I’ve worked too hard to get into med school to ruin my chances now. But I would do some damage in a heartbeat.”

“And risk having me press charges? No you won’t”, Jack replies dismissively as he slowly tries to get closer to Morgan, disregarding the threat of the gun entirely. He does stop and take a seemingly involuntary step back, though, when the safety of the gun audibly clicks and Morgan’s finger moves from the side of the gun to its trigger.

“My friend who was there earlier? He’s a former cop”, she says conversationally, as if she wasn’t holding Jack at gunpoint and he hadn’t been stalking her for days.

“You have friends now? That’s news”, he cuts in, obviously aiming to hurt, but Morgan ignores him entirely.

“He’d make sure pressing charges would be the worst idea you’ve ever had in your life”, she continues, still on the same tone. Then, when Jack tries to take a step forward again, she adds: “Take one more step and I blow up your knee. Don’t try me; you know damn well my aim is always perfect. I happen to be just as good with a gun as I am with a bow.”

“And how would your friend even do that?” Jack retorts, pretending to be amused, though he stays right where he is and Claire can hear his confidence starting to waver now. “You have no valid reason to shoot me – I’m unarmed, you couldn’t even argue it was self-defense. Now stop being unreasonable and put down that gun. You know you belong with me, you’re just trying to rebel like you always do. This would be a lot simpler if you weren’t so damn stubborn.”

“No valid reason?” Morgan repeats, voice so dangerously low that Claire has to strain to be able to make out the words. “Do you want me to list all the very valid reasons I have to shoot you right now? Because I have a long, long list for you if you do.”

Jack shakes his head. “So unnecessarily complicated. You have no leverage, Morgan. You don’t have any proof. You can’t ruin my life… but I can ruin yours. If I tell your father about this, the financial support you—”

“By any means, feel free to do that”, Morgan shoots back without letting him finish, both condescending and irate now. “And then I’ll tell him about the rest. About the lies and the insults and the shouts. About the doors you’d slam before you’d find my face to slap. About the walls you threw me against. About the bruises I never showed anyone but that I have pictures of – because I do have proof, Jack, even if you were always careful not to leave visible marks on parts of my skin that wouldn’t be covered by clothes. How much do you think my father – no, my entire family – would love to hear about all of that? You’d stop being their golden boy really fast if they knew.”

The threat only makes Jack laugh. “Are you sure that they care enough about you that it would matter?” he taunts her.

That gets Morgan to flinch for the first time, but it doesn’t throw her off for long. Not even two seconds later, she readjusts her grip on the gun, relaxes her shoulders, and stands even taller and prouder than before.

“Actually, yes, I think they would care”, she says coldly. “And if they don’t, well, it doesn’t change much, because the police will.”

“The police won’t care either – they won’t even believe you to begin with. Don’t try to scare me with empty threats; you know how this works”, Jack retorts, but even though he tries his best to hide it, his attitude tells Claire that he’s starting to feel cornered and at a loss for arguments.

“I never make empty threats”, Morgan replies without raising her voice, and somehow it’s even more chilling that way. “I’m very serious when I say that my friend would turn the rest of your life into a hell on Earth if he heard about what you put me through; trust me on that.”

“You—”

“But, since I’d rather keep my private life private, here’s what’s going to happen now”, Morgan continues, ignoring the interruption entirely. “You’re going to leave, and I’m never going to hear from you again.”

She takes a step forward. Jack takes a step back.

He doesn’t seem to be conscious of that step, but he still takes it, eyes focused on the barrel of the gun that never stopped being squarely aimed at his knee. Morgan’s finger hasn’t left the trigger, and even though she did say earlier that she only wanted to scare him, Claire isn’t a hundred percent convinced she wouldn’t actually shoot if he gave her a good reason to. Jack seems to be of the same mind.

“If you ever come near me again, or go after one of my friends, or try to sabotage our lives in any way”, Morgan enumerates, “in short, if you don’t forget I even exist – effective immediately –, I will ruin your life and make you regret your decision for the rest of it. I’m not an impressionable fifteen year old anymore, Jack, and you’d better remember that from now on. For your sake, not mine.”

She takes a second step forward, which is matched by a second step back by Jack as well. Claire can tell Morgan has definitely succeeded in switching the power dynamic between them at this point, because he looks nowhere near as sure of himself as he did five minutes ago. Not to mention that his tone verges on frantic pleading, this time, when he tries to get her to change her mind instead of trying to regain the upper hand. “Come on, don’t you think it sounds a bit excessi—”

But Morgan isn’t done. She’s far from done laying out her conditions.

“I’m going to count to five”, she says, louder than him. “If, by the time I reach three, you haven’t moved, I shoot. On five, if I can still see you, I shoot too. Two seconds is more than enough – the street is not that far behind you –, but I decided to be generous because I don’t like wasting bullets. So make your choice. Now. Leave or get shot.”

Jack’s entire demeanor shifts at this exact moment. Whether it’s because he’s admitted he’s lost or because he hopes lashing out will be what finally gets under Morgan’s skin, Claire couldn’t tell, but the loud, angry shout takes her completely by surprise.

“I made you into who you are today, you ungrateful bitch”, he spits out venomously. “You would be nothing if you hadn’t met me!”

Morgan doesn’t even flinch.

“One”, she counts calmly. She exudes nothing but cold determination now; and even though Claire can’t see her eyes from her current angle, she has no doubt that they burn bright with it too.

Jack shakes his head with disgust. “Without me, you’ll never be worth anything.”

“I’m the only one who gets to decide what I’m worth. Two.”

“Right. You’ll still be miserable forever”, he scoffs, though he begins hurriedly stepping back when Morgan’s finger curls around the trigger.

“Three.”

Jack still doesn’t turn around. He keeps moving backwards instead, without breaking eye contact, even as Morgan follows his movements with the barrel of her gun.

“Four.”

He reaches the end of the alley just as she finishes saying the number.

“No one else will ever love you anyway”, he sneers maliciously, obviously aiming to hurt Morgan one last time before he goes – one last sentence, to make sure he does as much damage as he possibly can with how little time he has left. Even if he’ll never have any way of knowing whether he succeeded or not.

“Five.”

But Jack has already stepped aside and rounded the corner, and Morgan doesn’t have anything left to shoot at.

She doesn’t move, though. She keeps the gun aimed at the spot where she last saw him, still as a statue, and Claire finds herself unable to breathe just yet. Just in case he were foolish enough to come back thinking Morgan would have let her guard down.

He doesn’t.

His car eventually drives past the alley instead.

Claire closes her eyes for a brief moment, letting the wave of relief wash over her. They’re safe – Morgan is safe. It’s over. There will be no more stalker to be afraid of, no more worrying about their every move. They won’t have to—

Claire’s eyes fly open again when a sharp noise reaches her ears. Said sharp noise being due, as she immediately realizes, to the gun being now on the floor instead of in Morgan’s hands.

Morgan’s trembling hands.

Morgan whose entire body is shaking like a leaf.

And, as Claire attempts to push the door open to join her outside, she suddenly realizes that she isn’t faring much better. Now that the high levels of adrenaline that were keeping her body ready to act while Jack was there are going abruptly down, and especially combined with the never-ending stress that characterized her entire day prior to that, she finds herself with no strength and very little self-control left. To the point where she has to let herself slide to the floor to avoid falling down, even as the only thing she wants to do is go help Morgan on the other side of that damn door.

It’s all been too much. Way too much for one day.

What finally jerks her body back into action, though, maybe ten seconds later at most, is the sight of the door being pulled open much wider so Morgan can walk through it – a deathly pale Morgan, with tear tracks on her cheeks and a hand over her mouth to muffle the broken sobs that keep ripping through her, who almost runs through the room to get to the door leading back into the café-restaurant. By some miracle, Claire’s current spot on the floor isn’t directly in Morgan’s way and she doesn’t involuntarily cause her to trip up – considering how dark it is in the room, she’s pretty sure Morgan didn’t even realize she was still there –, but it does send one more rush of adrenaline through her body and lets her take back control of it in a matter of seconds.

The first thing she does is grab hold of the shelf next to her for support and slowly stand back up, shifting her weight from foot to foot to make sure her legs aren’t going to give way beneath her without a warning again. Then, rather than immediately going after Morgan, she reluctantly slips outside instead; because yes, she might really really hate guns, but she does hate the thought of someone stumbling upon it before Morgan retrieves it even more.

So, seconds later, she bends down to very carefully grab it by the grip in the middle of the alley – without having any idea whether the safety is back on or not, and not a clue how to check –, and handles it with as much extra caution as possible as she brings it back inside. She fully closes the door behind her this time, ensuring that no one can enter the storage room from the alley from now on, then places the gun under a shelf, where no one can possibly find it before Morgan can deal with it. Which will hopefully be soon.

But until then, since there’s nothing more she can do about the gun on her own, Claire’s priorities shift to what she wishes could have always been the first item on her list: finding out where Morgan has gone and whether she needs anything at all.

The night feels far from over just yet.

Chapter Text

When Claire rounds the corner and the inside of the café-restaurant reenters her line of sight, her eyes immediately begin searching for Morgan among the rest of the customers. She doesn’t have much success, though: it turns out that their table is still empty, the binders on it are untouched… and Morgan is nowhere to be seen.

Claire’s mind goes through all possible scenarios at once.

Did Morgan leave? But that would have been easier to do from the alley directly, without anyone seeing her in tears. Unless she absolutely wanted to get her coat first this time? But no, it’s still there. So did she go somewhere else? But the only room that’s guaranteed to be empty most of the time is the storage room, and Morgan didn’t stay there. Besides, what other room is there even?

The answer becomes obvious to Claire the second the question crosses her mind.

Kicking herself for not thinking about it sooner, she whirls around, rounds the corner again, and pushes open the door to the restroom this time.

Sure enough, Morgan is indeed there, sitting with her back against the wall in one of the only two stalls and pressing her hands against her chest as if it could somehow help her regulate her uneven breathing. Claire immediately rushes to her side, holding back tears of her own at the sight of Morgan in such a state, and whispers a soft “it’s okay, it’s just me” in reassurance when Morgan’s eyes panicked eyes fly open as she attempts to shrink in on herself even further.

Careful to move in as little abrupt a manner as she can, Claire closes the door of the stall behind her and slowly sits down against it. The fact that it was open when she arrived, after the few minutes she lost bringing the gun safely back inside, worries her immensely; for Morgan – Morgan, the one person who always stubbornly refuses to show anything even resembling vulnerability – to either not realize or not care that anyone needing to use the restroom in the near future might come in and see her in tears, her mental state must be pretty damn terrible.

They sit there in silence for a little while, Claire finding herself unable to figure out what to say; everything feels either shallow or too direct, and she knows without a shred of a doubt that Morgan would hate hearing meaningless platitudes at the moment. So she stays mute and just watches instead, as Morgan closes her eyes again and acts as if Claire had never entered the room at all, until Morgan suddenly lurches forward and starts dry-heaving over the toilet bowl while her shoulders shake with uncontrolled sobs.

Claire doesn’t even think before she acts. The stall is so small that it takes her a second to go from sitting to kneeling without hitting anything in the process, but then she gathers Morgan’s hair to get it out of her face and starts rubbing a hand over her back, providing comfort however she can. She has a feeling that this already happened a few times while Morgan was alone in the restroom, and it suddenly makes sense to her why Morgan came here instead of staying in the storage room. Keeping her emotions in check the way she did the entire time Jack was there must have led to a quite violent aftermath once it was over.

“I got you”, Claire whispers softly. “I got you.”

Surprisingly enough, despite her aversion to touch – that Claire definitely forgot about while she was reacting on instinct –, Morgan doesn’t pull away or tense up for more than a split second. In fact, if Claire’s senses haven’t suddenly decided to betray her, she even feels like Morgan almost starts leaning into her touch a few moments later.

“Do you need anything?”

Morgan shakes her head and leans back against the wall as the dry-heaving finally subsides, and Claire retracts her hand in spite of how much she wants to curl it around Morgan’s shoulder and pull her into a hug. Now is the absolute last moment to ever overstep on purpose.

She still decides to twist to sit next to Morgan instead of letting herself fall back down against the door, though, and, rather than doing her damned best to avoid any sort of contact in the cramped stall, tentatively presses their shoulders together as she relaxes against the wall, figuring that this should be okay at least.

And it seems to be.

Because Morgan is definitely leaning into the touch this time.

“You’re the strongest, most incredible person I’ve ever met”, Claire truthfully says to break the silence; she keeps looking straight ahead rather than at Morgan, though, because she knows this will be more comfortable for her. “Don’t get me wrong – I still do think that confronting him directly like that was insanely reckless, but… It was also pretty damn badass. I don’t know how you found the strength and courage to stand up to him like that; I would have crumbled on the spot the second he showed up.”

Morgan noticeably tenses up. “You saw what happened?” she croaks with an edge to her voice.

“Yeah. I was there, just behind the door. I wanted to follow you outside, but… he came into the alley before I could, and I knew it’d make things worse if saw me at this point. Not that you ever needed me”, Claire remarks. She then half-smiles and finally turns her head to look at Morgan, who has begun furiously wiping away her tears. “I meant what I said – you’re pretty damn incredible.”

“Great”, Morgan mutters in between two breaths that sound more like hiccups. There’s anger in her voice now, although it doesn’t seem to be directed at Claire but rather at herself. “That’s just great. Icing on the cake.”

“What do you— Why would— Morgan’s, what’s wrong?” Claire asks, completely taken aback by her reaction. She attempts to gently grab Morgan’s hands to still them, but she gets furiously pushed away the second she gets too close.

“Get out”, Morgan orders. “I don’t need and I especially don’t want your pity, Claire. I should have known— Get out!”

Filled with sudden understanding, Claire rolls her eyes and doesn’t move an inch. “What you got out of my calling you a badass is that I pity you? Seriously? I was raised by a woman who’d sometimes beat my ass because she’d had a bad day, Morgan; I think I’m the last person in the world with any right to judge whatever it is you went through or who will see you differently because of it. If anything, I understand where you’re coming from a little too well. So do us both a favor and stop trying to make me go away already, because I’m not leaving this place without you tonight. I get that you’re probably used to dealing with everything on your own, you think that’s what you have to do, but you don’t have to. Not anymore. I know I keep telling you that, but I really do mean it. You’re stuck with me. Get used to it.”

Morgan glares at her, but it’s only half-hearted at this point. All fight gradually left her while Claire was talking. “Things would be so much easier if I could hate you right now”, she mumbles, defeated. “Except you make it really hard to do that and it’s really annoying.”

Claire pretends to be in deep thought. “Says the one who managed just fine for… how many months again? Can you remind me?”

Morgan glares some more, although her quiet sniffles ruin her credibility entirely. “Yes, well, I didn’t know you back then. Why do you have to be so insufferably good and nice?”

Claire shakes her head and laughs a little. “I’m not insufferably good and nice; I just try my best to help people. You, on the other hand, are insufferably stubborn.”

“And proud of it”, Morgan immediately retorts.

“Of course you are”, Claire says, chuckling frankly this time.

After that, they fall silent for a little while. Morgan has stopped crying by now; the only thing left is to wait for her breathing to even out again.

Once it’s mostly back to normal, Claire bumps her shoulder into Morgan’s. (Or rather presses their shoulders even closer together, considering they’re already touching. A proper bump in these conditions is rather difficult to make.) “You good?” she asks softly.

“Better”, Morgan answers honestly.

“Ready to get out of here? Though it’s okay if you’re not; take your time.”

“Do I want to stay on the dirty floor of a ridiculously small toilet stall for any longer than what was strictly necessary? Yes, of course! There’s nowhere else I’d rather be”, Morgan deadpans.

“Great! Me too”, Claire replies, even as she awkwardly pushes herself off the wall and door to get up as best she can from her spot on the floor. She holds her hand out to Morgan and adds: “Come on.”

Except Morgan looks at her outstretched hand like it personally offended her.

And Claire honestly wonders if it would even be humanly possible to be more stubbornly determined to do everything on your own than Morgan is.

“Suit yourself. After all, it’s either you hit your knees on something trying to get up on your own, or you use the toilet seat for support, or you take my hand. I really get why the third choice is the worst.”

Morgan glares at her again, though it manages to be semi-convincing this time at least. “Now I remember why I couldn’t stand you for months.”

She still does take Claire’s hand.

“See? That wasn’t so hard!”

“I do hate you.”

Claire grins, quite amused and very much relieved to see Morgan be her good old self for the first time that day. “No you don’t.”

She unlocks the stall and they walk back into the main arena of the restroom, where Morgan immediately heads to the sink to try to make herself look presentable again. Before she even has time to turn on the faucet, though, Lea pushes open the door leading to the inside of the café-restaurant and sighs with relief at the sight of the two of them.

“There you are! I was getting worried; you’ve been gone forever and I never got an answer to any of my texts!”

And for good reason – Claire’s phone is still in her bag, at their table, where she left it when she went after Morgan in a hurry.

“We’re good”, she answers, hoping Lea will leave it at that and go back to working her shift without pressing the issue any further.

But Lea is Lea, and keeping her mouth shut when people hope she will has never been her strong suit. So, when she notices Morgan’s totally ruined make-up, she immediately says exactly what she thinks.

“Wow. You look like shit.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be fake-smiling at clients at the register right now instead of making entirely unwelcome comments about my appearance?” Morgan retorts, looking daggers at her.

“Well, yeah, but I got a colleague to cover for me for a minute while I searched for you two”, Lea replies, shrugging. She turns to Claire and asks: “Wild guess, that isn’t based on the bag abandoned in the middle of the storage room or anything, but are you going to leave through the back this time again? And do I even want to know what’s going on?”

“Just know we’re all good”, Claire answers. “Also, yeah, I think it’s best if we use the unofficial exit once more.”

“Okay. Then you should go get your things, I guess.”

Claire can’t help but glance worriedly at Morgan, reluctant to leave her alone even just for five minutes and even though she seems to be doing much better now.

And Lea seems to notice it, because she immediately adds: “Go. I’ll stay with her.”

“Absolutely not”, Morgan says icily.

“Absolutely yes”, Lea echoes. “Look, you don’t like me, that’s fine – I get it, even, because pissing you off is the most fun I have at this job most of the time and I do take every opportunity to do that –, but I also know that you’re too damn proud to let people in the streets see your obvious I-just-bawled-my-eyes-out-for-some-reason face and I happen to be great at fixing those. Plus, I have make-up removing wipes in my pockets because you can never be too prepared, am I right? So quit whining and let me help, grump.”

Claire scrunches up her face to keep from laughing and looks over at Morgan. “You’re in good hands”, she decides. Lea’s definitely got this.

Then she hurriedly gets out of the restroom, closing the door behind her before she can hear what Morgan undoubtedly has to answer to that.

It only takes Claire a few minutes to gather the binders, textbooks and other papers strewn all over the table, shove them into her bag where they barely fit since Morgan’s is still in the storage room, put on her coat, grab Morgan’s, and pay for their coffees before she walks back into the restroom.

“Ready to go?”

It’s Lea who answers first; Morgan doesn’t even have time to open her mouth.

“She’s all good and all yours. Incredible how she’s so much nicer once she becomes cooperative, huh? I’m starting to understand how you two could become best buddies a lot better.”

“And now I remember why I don’t like you”, Morgan retorts pointedly, annoyed.

It only makes Lea laugh. “I don’t doubt that, grump.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“And now you understand why I hate it when you call me Saint Claire… Your turn to deal with a ridiculous nickname; it’s only fair”, Claire tells Morgan, smiling. She then adds, to Lea: “Now go back to your shift before someone realizes you’ve been gone a little too long – I would hate to see you get in trouble for helping us. And, you know. Thank you. So much.”

Lea shrugs. “Of course. Stay safe now, okay? And take care of her. Even strong-willed stubborn grumps need some love when it matters.”

“Hey, I’m right here”, Morgan hisses through gritted teeth as Lea walks past Claire to get out of the restroom, but there are some hints of embarrassment mixed in with the annoyance this time.

Lea stops with her hand on the handle to turn around and wink at Morgan. “I know you are, grump!”

She’s out the door before anything else can be added, and it takes all of Claire’s willpower not to laugh at the affronted look on Morgan’s face. She’s mostly worried that, if she were to start, she couldn’t stop for a while because it’d immediately turn into a nervous laughter considering how much anxiety accumulated inside of her throughout the day, and she absolutely refuses to lose it in front of Morgan who had it so much worse. 

“Let’s go”, she says instead, holding out Morgan’s coat for her to take and put on.

They get out of the restroom as soon as that’s done; then, after a quick glance around the corner to make sure no one is heading their way, Claire opens the door to the storage room and they both slip inside – together, this time.

“Your gun is under that shelf”, Claire says, pointing to it with a trembling finger as Morgan goes get her bag. “Please unload it before we get out of here.”

Morgan looks up with surprise written all over her face. “You brought it back inside?”

“It was a better option than leaving it in the middle of the alley for who knows how long, so yes.”

“I thought you hated guns.”

“Oh, I do”, Claire confirms. “I just happen to hate the thought of someone finding your gun on the floor and using it to commit a crime even more.”

Morgan stares at her for a long time, with an intensity Claire isn’t used to at all – especially coming from her. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I did. Now can you please take care of that thing? It’d make me feel a lot better than debating about what I did half an hour ago.”

“It’s not that complicated”, Morgan says as she kneels next to the shelf to retrieve her gun. “You just— Oh, you didn’t put the safety back on.”

“Again: do I look like someone who can tell what part is the safety exactly, much less if it’s on or not?” Claire grumbles.

“Do you want me to show you?”

“Absolutely not!”

Morgan shrugs, puts the safety back on, removes the magazine, and puts the two separate pieces into her bag. “As you wish. It’s a useful thing to know, though.”

“Still no. And this thing isn’t getting into my apartment, so we’re stopping by your place first.”

Claire fully expects Morgan to use this as an opportunity to argue she can just stay at her place while she’s at it, but, surprisingly, it doesn’t happen. Whether it’ll be said once they’re actually there or whether she’ll agree to sleep at Claire’s again without even a word about it remains to be seen, but Claire has a feeling the second option will be the right one. After going through something as traumatic as confronting her former abuser, spending the night alone is probably not high on the list of Morgan’s wishes.

They leave the café-restaurant through the service door for the second time this week – and hopefully last time ever – without any issue whatsoever. Claire relaxes when she sees that the alley really is empty; she knew, realistically, that it would be, but there were still lingering doubts at the back of her mind because what if. What if Jack came back after all? What if he was waiting for them, and he was the one with a gun this time?

Morgan, however, freezes the moment they step outside. The very recent and very vivid memories are obviously flooding her mind and overwhelming her; her hands start to shake even as her knuckles turn white from gripping the straps of her bag too tightly, and she goes from looking quite like her regular self again to nearing a panic attack in a matter of seconds.

“He’s gone”, Claire whispers, trying her best to catch Morgan’s eyes. “You made him leave. He won’t hurt you anymore; you’re safe.”

Morgan nods, but she still doesn’t move. “I know.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I just need a second.”

It’s Claire’s turn to nod. “Okay.”

Morgan takes a few deep breaths, eyes staring straight in front of her as if she could still see Jack where he used to stand. Then, resolutely, she steps forward into the alley, not stopping until she reaches the main street where the entrance of Chick ‘n’ Bread opens to her right. Claire follows with a delay as she purposely trails after her; she wants Morgan to have this moment all to herself, conquering her fear and leaving it behind her so she can start rebuilding herself from now on, without the pressure of anyone urging her to move.

“All good?” Claire asks once they’re both on the nearly empty sidewalk in the street.

Morgan looks and sounds confident, this time, when she answers. “Yes.”

“Then let’s get you home”, Claire says, smiling. She only catches what she said exactly when uncertainty flashes across Morgan’s face, and she suddenly feels a burst of heat rise to her cheeks as she realizes just how easily the words came to her. “By which I mean my apartment”, she quickly clarifies. “After you drop off your gun at your place.”

“You really dislike firearms, don’t you?”

Claire feels the need to confirm. “I really do.”

Morgan goes into her apartment alone. Claire is happy to wait outside while she takes the time she needs to unwind a little, however long that takes, and prepare a bag with clothes to last her until Monday. (Morgan didn’t protest at the idea of staying over during the entire weekend, not even a half-hearted comment just for the sake of it, and that’s how Claire knows the events of the evening really did shake her a lot.)

Somewhere around ten minutes later, she emerges with a backpack carefully secured over her shoulders and her hair up in a messy ponytail that Claire can’t help but find awfully endearing. “I’m ready.”

“You did leave your gun in your apartment, right?”

Morgan looks a little irritated by the question. “You have boundaries, Claire. I can respect that.”

“Just making sure. You got everything you need?”

“No, I just needed some fresh air before I go back inside”, Morgan deadpans, though she’s unable to fully keep the sarcastic tone out of her voice.

Claire lets out an amused puff of air. “Is that your way of telling me my question was stupid?”

“It was stupid”, Morgan confirms.

Claire shakes her head and sighs dramatically but doesn’t actually answer, and with that they’re out of the building and into the street. They don’t talk on their way to the bus stop, both too lost in their thoughts for that, but the silence between them is oddly comforting. Claire almost feels like it’s bringing them closer, for some reason.

Halfway through the bus ride, Morgan falls asleep. They’re sitting next to each other so Claire doesn’t realize it at first, but then Morgan’s head falls onto her shoulder and suddenly she’s hyper-aware of every little movement her body makes along with the bumps on the road. The last thing she wants is to inadvertently wake Morgan up when the poor girl must be exhausted; all things considered, Claire is not even sure Morgan got any sleep at all while she was planning to confront Jack the previous night, so she needs all the rest she can get now.

Once they near their stop, though, Claire has no choice but to gently shake her awake. “Morgan. Hey, Morgan, we need to get off soon. Plus, I’m not sure I’m a very comfortable pillow… You’ll get to sleep with a proper one in a few minutes, I promise.”

Morgan’s eyes flutter open and she looks around, as if in a haze, before she seems to remember where she is and why. She rubs her face to wake herself up a little further, then nods and follows Claire out of the bus as it pulls to a stop.

They take the elevator instead of the stairs to get up to the third floor, neither of them in the mood for some exercise at the moment, and Claire opens the door to check that none of her roommates are currently in the living room before Morgan follows her inside. The air mattress is still in her room – she’d merely pushed it aside the previous night – so they can head there directly, without a need for a detour this time, and that’s exactly what they do.

“Do you want to go to the bathroom first?” Claire offers.

“If you don’t mind.”

Morgan comes back less than five minutes later, dressed in PJs of her own this time, and Claire hurriedly gets out of her room before her traitorous brain can point out that Morgan looks way cuter in an oversized T-shirt than she really has any right to. It’s neither the time nor the place for this kind of thoughts (why the hell did that even cross her mind anyway), and the last thing her friend needs is for her to get distracted by things that absolutely don’t matter at the moment.

When she reenters her room more than ten minutes later, after taking her sweet time as she released some of the tension that still lingered in her body, Claire fully expects Morgan to be settled under the covers and maybe even asleep already. But instead, she finds her sitting on her bed, with the air mattress still up against the desk, and more awake than she’s been since she woke up on the bus half an hour ago.

Claire doesn’t say anything about it. If Morgan doesn’t want to go to sleep just yet, they can very well do something else until then. Even if it’s just sitting in silence.

Except the one scenario that ends up happening is the one Claire never could have envisioned.

Because Morgan starts talking as soon as the door gets closed and locked.

“He was my boyfriend for three years”, she says, her tone even.

Claire turns around and stares at her with shock. She didn’t ask and wasn’t planning on asking a single question about her history with Jack anytime soon; not that she doesn’t want to know, because she’s been curious about it for a while, but because it would have been highly insensitive for her to do so. She certainly didn’t expect Morgan to just… start volunteering information instead.

She almost opens her mouth to say that this can wait until they’ve had a good night’s sleep, and that Morgan doesn’t owe her any kind of explanation to begin with, but something about the look on her face stops her mid-motion. There’s some kind of desperation there, like she needs to be heard more than anything else, so Claire just waits.

She waits for the words to start tumbling out of Morgan’s mouth, because the first sentence seems to have opened the floodgates wide enough that they can’t be held in anymore.

“I met him when the archery club I practiced in as a child closed. The owners moved when I was fourteen so I had to join a new one and, beside the coaches, Jack was the most talented member there. I admired him immediately. He was almost eighteen at the time and he had been practicing most of his life, but it was obvious to anyone who knew even just the basics of archery that he had a natural talent for it. I was good too, more than most people my age, but it was out of sheer stubbornness. I never missed a practice in my life unless I had absolutely no other choice. I shot arrow after arrow on a hand-made target in my backyard until my fingers burned and my arm couldn’t hold the weight of the bow anymore, sometimes several days a week. The other days, I’d stop at a more reasonable time… but I’d still practice. I started archery when I was five and I didn’t miss a day for seven years; after that, school got in the way sometimes, but I only let it happen on very, very rare occasions. Archery was my passion – you could even say obsession. I loved it from the second I first held a bow in my hand.”

Claire finds herself holding her breath. She knows that the story is about to take a turn for the worst by the way Morgan has stopped talking and is swallowing hard instead, eyes unfocused and staring straight in front of her, and she doesn’t dare move lest she risk disturbing Morgan as she recalls what are obviously very painful memories.

“A few months later, he became an assistant coach, so he started spending even more time there. And since, unlike my old club, this one let teenage and adult members practice outside of classes in a dedicated room as much as we wanted as long as there was someone to supervise us – for security reasons, not that we ever needed it considering how many rules had been drilled into us over the years… Jack and I ended up being the only two people in that room a lot of the time, because he was overseeing it while I was stubbornly practicing almost every day – unlike most other members. And that’s when it began.”

Morgan’s hands have started shaking again; when she closes them into tight fists to try to keep some semblance of control over her body, Claire does the only thing she can think of. She walks to her desk to retrieve the blanket that she folded over a chair the previous night, and then she goes to drape it over Morgan’s shoulders as she sits down next to her on the bed.

Morgan doesn’t acknowledge her; she looks like she’s not even really aware of what’s happening around her, though she does grab the blanket’s edges as she burrows into it.

“We started challenging each other a lot. I loved it; it pushed me to get better, to work harder, to aim faster, and from a bigger distance most of the time. The direct result was that— Yes, I was already good before, but I became really good that year. Competitive environments are the best place for me to thrive, they always have; so, of course, our rivalry did wonders. But while there was nothing more to it on my end… I noticed that he started taking interest in me. A different kind of interest.”

A hollow laugh escapes Morgan’s lips, and she shakes her head.

“I could have made it clear the feeling wasn’t mutual. I could have stood my ground; I could have been firm about it. But I admired him, I liked our relationship at the time, and I was scared things were going to change between us if I said no. So I didn’t say anything. More than that – I let him believe I was interested too; it seemed like the best course of action. I thought… I thought it’d be better than risk him pushing me away for rejecting him. No matter what happened, I didn’t want to lose what we had, because…”

There’s a minute or so of silence as Morgan stops midway through her story, apparently unable to continue telling it right away. Claire doesn’t prompt her for more; she lets her set the pace and reveal only what she’s comfortable sharing, but the sight of Morgan looking so young, vulnerable and scared quite literally breaks her heart.

She doesn’t even know if Morgan ever said what happened to her to anyone before, or if this is the first time she opens up about what she went through.

All she knows is that she wants to shield Morgan from the world every day for the rest of their lives now.

“I was always the weird kid, whether in my family or at school”, Morgan resumes. “Most of my family are artists. My mom is a painter, good enough to be a local celebrity where I grew up, my older brother has become a sculptor, and my sister wants to study to become a composer – though she’s done that most of her life at home already. The only one who differs slightly is my father, who’s a locksmith; he met my mom when she forgot the keys to her apartment once, but I’m pretty sure he fell in love with her paintings before he fell in love with the person who created them. Just because he chose a different career doesn’t mean he’s not drawn to the arts to begin with. Me, on the other hand… I’m the black sheep. I’m the one who couldn’t care less. I love biology, and science in general, and archery. I love everything they’re indifferent to, and conversely.

“At school, I was never good at making friends. I was too blunt, too awkward, too reserved. I learned very early on that half the people who showed any interest in me were more interested in my semi-famous family than in me, so I started pretending I was an only child from a different family to escape that, but it didn’t exactly help much… Especially once the other kids learned the truth, one way or another. Overall, I spent most of my days alone. Archery is how I escaped the world around me; it was something that was mine and mine alone and I’d always find comfort in it no matter how terrible the rest of my life could feel. Except, at some point that year, archery and Jack started going hand-in-hand. Because he was someone who understood my passion for it, while most others at the club only thought of it as their pastime, and he was the first person in a very long time who cared about me for who I truly was.

“I did have a friend since the beginning of middle school, though. Her name was Mia; she came from another primary school and she was as much of a social outcast as I was. We stuck together throughout the years all the way into high school because it was better than being alone, and because we did get along well, but… once I started spending all my free time at my new archery club, we kind of grew apart a little. In part because of me, but also, as I’d learn later on, because she was struggling on her end and she didn’t know how to talk to anyone about it. To the point where, at the end of the year, her parents drove her to New Beginnings when they realized how seriously depressed she was. And then I had absolutely no one to talk to, to open up to, apart from Jack.”

Morgan closes her eyes as the first tear falls.

“And Jack was there for me. He’d bring me to his house with a backyard three times the size as mine and we’d practice there, on targets much farther than at the club, and he’d make me laugh even after he inevitably beat me, and I felt alive. It felt good to spend so much time with him. So when… when he kissed me for the first time, in his backyard during the summer holidays, I kissed him back. And it was… fine. For a year, it was fine – more than fine. I liked him so much, and I convinced myself I could bring myself to love him the way he loved me one day.

“In the meantime, he charmed my entire family – especially my dad. He’s quite religious, and he cared a lot more about me having a proper boyfriend than he cared about our age difference – that I didn’t even think about at the time. As for my mom…” Morgan scoffs bitterly. “Well, sometimes I wonder if my mom even remembered I existed in between two paintings. I’d given up on getting her to care about me for a long time. But my dad… For once in my life, I was doing something that made my dad look at me. Be proud of me. So at the time, dating Jack started to look like the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Claire braces herself for what’s about to follow. She already knows parts of what she’s going to hear, has guessed them after hearing Morgan confront Jack earlier, and she suddenly realizes that she’s never hated anyone in her entire life as much as she hates Jack right now.

What kind of monster preys on a fifteen year old?!

“Things started getting awry during our second year together. More exactly, they started getting awry when Jack realized that I had become as good an archer as he was. He didn’t deal with it well. And that’s when the shouting began.” Morgan takes a deep breath before she resumes speaking, with a voice that now has an undercurrent of anger in it. “I should have known better, right? I should have been better than this, I should have put an end to it the moment it started. But I let it slide instead; I found excuses for his behavior.”

“None of this is your fault”, Claire interjects quietly, unable to stay silent this time.

Morgan doesn’t even seem to hear her.

“It progressively got worse. He would… He would grab my arm so tight he’d leave marks as he yelled at me for disregarding his advice on my posture. He would make me doubt myself, tell me my skills I’d spent so long polishing were slowly getting worse again. And since I hardly ever practiced with anyone else anymore, just with him or alone, I started believing him. I realized later, much later, that he was actually destroying my abilities on purpose.

“But it didn’t stop there. I think… I think he got a taste of power and he decided he loved that a lot more than he loved me. When we were with anyone else, especially my family, he was still the perfect boyfriend he’d been at first, but when it was just the two of us… It escalated. He started insulting me, not just how well I could shoot an arrow. He made me doubt myself at every turn. And when he got angry, he wouldn’t stop at hurting me emotionally anymore. So I got very familiar with physical pain and how to hide bruises, while he apologized later on even as I knew damn well it wasn’t the last time it’d happen – no matter how convincing his promises always were.

“The worst part is that I didn’t see a way out. I didn’t see myself making it through high school if I gave up archery; and even if I didn’t give it up fully, if I kept practicing at home but stopped going to the club or to Jack’s so I wouldn’t have to see him again, I’d have to explain why to my parents who had seen me so invested in this sport for so many years. I’d also have to give a valid reason why we broke up, and I didn’t want to tell them what was happening. I wasn’t even sure they’d believe me, considering they saw Jack as nearly perfect in a way that I had never been – and he taunted me with that, the one time I threatened to leave him because I’d really had enough. He knew all my vulnerabilities, and he used them all against me.

“I wasn’t sure my family would take my side in this. I didn’t want my dad to tell me that my behavior was disappointing, that I was making it up, that he had raised me as a good Catholic girl and I should know better. I didn’t want to risk him getting angry with me on top of everything else, and maybe even decide not to pay for my years of med school after all. Because at this point, the only thing I was holding on to was that: surviving until I could finally leave to go to med school. I’ve wanted to become a surgeon for a very, very long time, and that dream also turned into my lifeline somewhere along the way.

“Mia came back during the last year of high school. She was doing really well again while I was hanging on by a thread, and… I found myself unable to talk to her. I didn’t want to drag her down, I didn’t want her to see me any differently, I didn’t want to deal with the shame. We’re still in contact today, though we barely speak anymore, but she never heard about any of this. I powered through on my own, as Jack slowly convinced me I owed him for the opportunities I’d had and I needed him by my side to deal with life in my hometown. As I started thinking that maybe he was right, and I’d never be worth anything on my own.

“I managed to break up with him at the beginning of the summer holidays, just before I moved here. I told my parents I couldn’t see myself doing long distance; they accepted that. I said I needed time before med school started to feel comfortable living in a city by myself so I’d move out immediately, in July instead of September, and they accepted that too. I think my mom was even relieved to see me go away – and I guess my siblings were as well. I told them all I was going to L.A. instead of San José; that way, Jack couldn’t find me, at least not easily. I mean, I guess he finally found what med school I’m attending through a fair amount of online research, but it took him months. And before I left, I told him I was done with him and I never wanted to see him again. He wasn’t happy. He was really not happy, but it didn’t matter because I didn’t give him a choice. Though, now… Now, I know he didn’t take me seriously until I said it with a gun.”

Morgan stops there, and Claire understands that she doesn’t have anything left to add. She mostly glossed over the abuse she suffered, quite understandably considering it’s apparently her first time even mentioning it happened to someone, but her general overview was already more than enough to give a good idea of how bad it got for so long.

Claire takes the time to find the right words to say. She knows how important her reaction will be for Morgan, for how she’ll deal with talking about her past in the future.

“You did nothing wrong”, she says softly, careful not to startle Morgan. “You did nothing wrong. Everything that happened is on him. No one should ever have to go through what you did. And now… Now, I need you to hear that the abuse you suffered doesn’t define you. Ever. It’s a part of you and it’s going to take a long time to heal, but you’re more than your past.” Claire then grits her teeth and adds: “As for your family who never respected you or accepted you for who you are, who made you feel like you were secondary and you didn’t matter? Fuck them.”

The swear word is what finally seems to draw Morgan back to the present instead of staying lost in her memories. She turns her head to look at Claire, the tear tracks on her cheeks glistening in the light, and the shock on her face stays there for a long time unabated.

“Fuck them”, Claire repeats slowly. “You are and you were always enough. You deserved to grow up in a much more loving environment, you deserved to be valued for your own strengths. You are enough. And brilliant, and determined, and tenacious, and caring, and kind – and yes, stubborn as hell and boastful and a bit pretentious at times, but you’re you and you are enough. And Shaun, and Alex, and I… We appreciate you for who you are. We’re here. And I can’t talk for either of them, but as far as I’m concerned? I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. So I just… I just want you to know that you’re not alone. Not anymore.”

Morgan opens and closes her mouth a few times, at a loss for words as she begins crying even harder – though for a much different reason now –, and Claire stops resisting the urge she’s had for quite a while now: she finally wraps a hand around Morgan’s shoulders, pulling her close. She does wonder, for a split second, if she’ll get pushed away, but the exact opposite happens.

Morgan falls willingly into the hug, almost crumbling against Claire’s chest as she lets out tears that have been held inside for way too long.

“You’re not alone”, Claire repeats, tightening her arms around Morgan and letting her cheek rest on top of her head as she whispers the words in her hair. “You have us now. You’re not alone.”

Later, a lot later, when the tears finally subside, it doesn’t take long for Claire to realize that Morgan has fallen asleep after quite literally crying herself to sleep in her arms. It’s entirely unsurprising; Morgan was exhausted enough to drop off on the bus earlier already so there was only so much longer she could stay awake now, but it still… feels a little unreal to Claire. She doesn’t know why Morgan chose to trust her with so much in one day, especially with her entire life story, but she doesn’t want to question it. She wants to make her feel as safe, believed, respected and accepted as possible; that’s all she cares about right now.

For the time being, after weighing all her options for what course of action to take at the moment, Claire starts by maneuvering to gently extract herself from beneath the weight of Morgan’s body. She then pushes her a little more to the middle of the bed, making sure she doesn’t risk falling off if she rolls over, and brings the covers up to her chin, despite her still being wrapped up in Claire’s emotional support blanket. The room can get quite chilly at night, after all, and it certainly is better to be a little too hot than a little too cold.

Claire falls asleep on the air mattress almost an hour later, after being kept awake for a good long while by memories of everything Morgan revealed tonight playing on a loop in her head and without the slightest idea what will happen after they both wake up the next day.

She doesn’t know where they’re going to go from here.

But she does know that, to the best of her abilities, she’ll try to be there for Morgan every step of the way.

Chapter Text

Claire wakes up to an empty bed the next morning. At first, she supposes that Morgan has gone to the bathroom or is out into the living room to let her get some more sleep without disturbing her, but it quickly becomes clear that’s not the case at all. Because when Claire sits up, the first thing her eyes latch onto is a piece of paper placed over the pillow, where it’s clearly meant to be in plain sight. And a quick glance around the room also tells her that Morgan’s backpack is nowhere to be seen anymore.

With the weight of dread lodged firmly into her stomach, Claire grabs the piece of paper and begins to read the neat writing covering it.

I know the plan was for me to spend the weekend here, but after sleeping on it, I think I need to be alone to sort through my feelings and my issues for now. And you do deserve some time to yourself after helping me out for days without getting anything out of it (apart from an unhealthy dose of anxiety that I’m really sorry about).

See you on Monday.

Morgan

P.S.: I’ll send you a text when I arrive at my place. Because I know you’ll freak out otherwise…

Claire immediately rummages through her bag to find her phone that she hasn’t touched since they left the school with Alex the previous evening – what feels like forever ago –, ignores the hours old worried texts from Lea that she knew would be there, and opens her conversation with Morgan where the last message dates back to weeks ago. She forces herself to breathe deeply even as her heart continues beating way too quickly and erratically; she reminds herself that doesn’t know when Morgan wrote the note and left her apartment, so the lack of news could very well be normal.

(As it turns out, the “because I know you’ll freak out” part was awfully on point.) 

It’s a good ten minutes before a text finally appears on the screen. Ten minutes during which Claire does nothing but alternate between reading Morgan’s note again and staring intensely at her phone, as if she could will a notification into existence by some miracle.

Former bane of my existence: For your peace of mind.

The text is accompanied by a picture of Morgan’s apartment for good measure, and it makes Claire smile even as she sighs with relief. The name of the contact in her phone doesn’t sit right with her anymore, though, considering just how much their relationship changed since she’d renamed it to that, and she debates what to turn it into for a few moments before she settles for a simple ‘Morgan’.

(That doesn’t feel right either, too impersonal to really fit, but she can’t come up with anything better at the moment.)

Once she’s done, she goes back to the conversation to answer the first message, but she finds another text that she wasn’t expecting instead.

Morgan: And thank you. For last night.

Then another one appears.

Morgan: Take care of yourself.

And, finally, after a rather long pause, a third and last.

Morgan: x

Claire has to bite her lip to keep from grinning like an absolute idiot as the messages slowly trickle in. It’s obvious that Morgan isn’t comfortable with or used to casual texting at all, but she’s awkwardly trying her best for Claire’s sake and that’s already more than enough.

My peace of mind definitely appreciates it

Stay safe, take care and get some sleep

I’m here if you need anything

Otherwise, see you on Monday

Claire finally inserts a heart emoji, then debates with herself for ten good seconds before she decides to go for it and presses the send button. She figures Morgan could use some obvious love and support right now.

(She still can’t believe she’s grown to care so much about someone she couldn’t stand six months ago. And yet…

Now, she can’t really imagine her life without Morgan anymore.

Nor does she want to imagine her life without Morgan anymore.)

Claire doesn’t realize that her blanket is nowhere to be found until she comes back from her shift at the supermarket that afternoon and decides to tidy up her room, which has become quite messy over the course of the week. At first, when she doesn’t find it on the bed, she supposes that Morgan folded it and put it back on the shelf where it belongs in her closet, but once she checks and it isn’t there, she immediately guesses what happened.

Morgan took it with her.

Claire still searches for it in her entire room just to be sure; but when she comes up empty-handed, she has to admit that her initial idea was the right one: Morgan must have taken it with her.

And if it were any other person, Claire would be pissed. She would have never let anyone take it without asking for permission first – and even then, she very much doubts she’d have given it –, but… it’s Morgan. Morgan to whom she told the story of that blanket, something she’d never done before. Morgan who’s in dire need of any emotional support she can get at the moment.

Claire finds she isn’t pissed at all.

She even quite likes the idea that a part of her will still be with Morgan this weekend, regardless of her physical presence.

Monday comes both too fast and too slowly to Claire’s tastes. Too fast, because she has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to all the hours of studying she missed during the week and her usual shifts at the supermarket don’t leave her with much time for that; too slowly, because she wants to know how Morgan is doing and that requires the weekend to be over. (She does feel an urge to call or text to get an update, but Morgan kind of implied that she wouldn’t appreciate any external disruptions during those two days and Claire respects her too much to disregard that in any way.) But Monday does comes, and with it the discovery of how many aspects of their days at the school the previous week will have impacted.

As it turns out, things change in ways that are rather subtle, yet also huge in other respects. And if anyone payed close enough attention, it’d have become noticeable as soon as Morgan steps into the amphitheater that Monday morning before the first class starts.

Claire is already there, sitting next to Shaun as she always does. She was going to wait outside at first, but then she reminded herself that she didn’t have any reason to be worried Morgan wouldn’t make it anymore and decided it’d be better to go back to her old habits instead of becoming stifling without intending to. So when Morgan enters the room and lingers by the door in a very unsure, uncharacteristic manner, Claire is there to see it. And to understand why in a split second as soon as Morgan glances to the empty seat at her right with eyes that look like giant question marks.

“Come sit with us”, Claire mouths silently, unable to keep a smile off her face when Morgan seems relieved by the offer and takes it up immediately. This feels… good. And right.

And she’s so focused on Morgan approaching and taking the offered seat that she almost startles at the sudden sound of Shaun’s voice coming from her other side.

“This is the second time you sit with us since Friday morning. You never did it before. Why are you changing your habits now?” he asks Morgan.

Claire tenses up. It’s a very valid question, she knows it is, but Shaun really chose the worst possible time to ask it. Knowing Morgan, she’s going to retract right back into her shell and leave to take another seat, she’s going to stubbornly refuse to sit with them until the end of times now that she’s been called out on it, she’s going to…

But Morgan doesn’t do any of those things.

She just freezes for a split second before she resumes getting her pencil case out of her bag.

Claire can still tell how much it goes against every single instinct she’s developed out of self-preservation over the years.

“I decided to try something new”, Morgan answers, her curt tone a stark contrast to her calm demeanor.

“Oh”, Shaun says, processing the information for a second. “It’s strange. I like my habits to always stay the same!”

“Well, usually I’d agree with you”, Morgan keeps replying instead of just ignoring the remark. “But I guess sometimes it’s good to get out of your comfort zone.”

Shaun shrugs. “I don’t think so.”

“I know you don’t”, Morgan says rather tersely, efficiently cutting the conversation short this time.

Claire stays silent for a moment. The sentence “I guess sometimes it’s good to get out of your comfort zone” is still stuck in her head, playing in a loop over and over again, because of the clear double meaning she can read in it; it sounds like a direct reference to Morgan opening up to her last week that she’s pretty sure was very much intentional, and that she doesn’t know how best to acknowledge.

It the end, she doesn’t acknowledge it. At least, not directly.

Instead, she leans to the side and whispers, low enough that only Morgan can possibly hear it: “Welcome to your new sitting arrangement, blanket thief.”

And if she didn’t know any better, she’d say that almost causes Morgan to blush, in addition to looking like a deer caught in headlights.

“It’s okay”, Claire adds, chuckling softly. “Keep it for the time being. I think you need it more than I do.”

(The fact that she’s almost perfectly mirroring the words she was told so many years ago isn’t lost on her, but she finds it’s one of those things that really just… feels right.)

Morgan smiles gratefully at her right as the professor asks for silence to begin his lecture, and then everything that isn’t taking notes with lightning fast speed stops mattering as the outside world slips away.

Med school is unforgiving if you let yourself be distracted, and a few unavoidable days in that situation during the previous week already didn’t do them any favors.

“So Lea is fun to talk to”, Alex says as they sit down at their usual table at the cafeteria.

“Lea is great”, Shaun agrees. After getting his noise-cancelling earphones out of his bag, he holds them out in front of him for additional proof.

Morgan stays silent.

“I’m not so sure why you disliked the idea of my meeting her so much”, Alex not-so-subtly insists, “but—”

“I couldn’t care less about you meeting Lea, as long as you don’t use that as an opportunity to become as insufferable as her in the process”, Morgan cuts in. “And for the record, I know what you’re doing. I know you’re still looking for an explanation for my inconsistent behavior last week. So I’m going to make myself clear and I’m only going to do it once: you’re not going to be privy to details about my personal life. Not today; not ever. I’m a very private person and I expect my friends to respect that if they want to keep belonging in that category, so you won’t know what happened. And you’re going to have to accept that. Was I clear enough?”

Alex puts his hands up in surrender. “Got it; I’ll back off for real”, he promises. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. But while we’re being fully honest for a second: know that if you ever need me for whatever reason, I’ll be there, alright? I want that to be clear too, because we all know you’re too damn stubborn to ask for help even when you should.”

Morgan meets Claire’s eyes for a split second, too short for any real exchange to happen but long enough for the “see? I told you, we’re all your friends and we’re here for you if you need us” message to get across perfectly.

“I know. And I’m fine”, Morgan retorts, but her tone isn’t biting; it rather verges on tired with a hint of gratefulness.

“Good. And on the bright side”, Alex says with humor, “at least you think of us as your friends now! Being around Claire for so long has softened your cold heart, it would seem”, he teases.

Morgan smiles at him. “Well, ‘lunchmates’ would have been more appropriate, but it seemed a little cold, even for me”, she shoots right back.

“Ouch”, Claire chimes in, amused by the conversation now that it’s turned light-hearted.

Alex bursts out laughing. “Sure, whatever you want to tell yourself”, he says, completely unbothered by Morgan’s attempt to backpedal. “You have a soft spot for us, whether you’re willing to admit it or not.”

“She does”, Claire confirms.

Morgan immediately turns to look at her with an utterly offended expression on her face. “What kind of betrayal is this? We team up against him, you two do not team up against me!”

“I vote for the change”, Alex interjects.

“Don’t dream”, Claire tells him. “There are just exceptions to every rule, and this situation was one of them. Savor it – it’s not going to happen again for a while!”

She relishes this moment, with all of them – except for Shaun, who put on his earphones and is happily ignoring their banter – messing around and teasing each other the way they usually do. After the tension that filled most of their interactions last week, it feels really, really good to come back to that.

“Why would you give me false hope?” Alex complains dramatically.

“It’s not her fault you drew conclusions too fast”, Morgan remarks.

“The way you reacted, you totally drew conclusions too fast too”, Alex replies without missing a beat.

As they continue their back-and-forth for a while longer, Claire sits back and quietly removes herself from the conversation, without either of them really seeming to notice. She hadn’t quite realized how much she missed hearing them bicker like siblings until now, but it’s slowly become a part of her life at the school that now knows she’d rather never lose. Shaun, Morgan, Alex… in just a few months, they’ve started feeling a lot more like family than Breeze ever did.

She wonders if that’s what it’s like to find a place where you belong.

(To find people with whom you belong.)

Claire ends up alone with Morgan once they all get out of the cafeteria. Shaun doesn’t attend the same first lecture as them on Monday afternoons and Alex regularly uses whatever free time he can get to talk to his son through a video call with his ex-wife, so it’s just the two of them for a little while.

It also means that Claire can speak freely for the first time since Morgan arrived this morning.

“I know it’s a topic you probably don’t want to talk about here at all”, she begins haltingly, “but I just… I just have one question to ask, if that’s okay.”

One question that hasn’t left her mind all weekend for one possibility that worries her immensely. One question that Morgan lets her say out loud.

“Go ahead.”

“Are you sure he’s gone for good and never coming back?”

There’s no hesitation in Morgan’s voice when she answers. “Yes. Jack is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t on that list. I made it clear coming after me would be more trouble than it’d ever be worth, and since he values his freedom a lot more than he likes the temptation of revenge… He’s not coming back. He won’t risk it.”

“Good”, Claire breathes out.

Morgan glances at her from the corner of her eye with a rueful half-smile on her face. “It’s over, Claire. Really. You can stop worrying about me now.”

There’s something about that statement, and even more about the way Morgan says it, that reads a lot like she’s being offered a way out, and Claire frowns as she wonders what it’s going to take for Morgan to realize that there’s no reason for her to do that exactly.

“Okay, I’ll stop worrying”, she says in a way that aims for casual, “on one condition. You tell me you’re a hundred percent fine – and you don’t lie to make me feel better.”

“I’ve survived worse”, Morgan replies dismissively.

Claire stops dead in her tracks and forces her to do the same, curling a hand around her arm without thinking twice about it. After taking a deep breath, Morgan turns back to stare her down, something their height difference very much helps her do.

“What?”

“That sounded like the opposite of ‘I’m fine’”, Claire points out.

“Maybe, but I will be. Eventually”, Morgan mutters.

Claire nods, almost absent-mindedly. “I know. If anyone is both strong and stubborn enough to get through this and move past it given enough time, it’s you. But unless you explicitly tell me to mind my damn business… I intend to be there for you while you do. I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to say this before you believe me once and for all, but I do have hope it’s going to stick at some point.”

Morgan pretends to be exasperated for all of a second, but she quickly gives it up in favor of smiling wryly instead. “Tell me, how exactly did we go from wanting each other’s heads on pitchforks to this?”

“That’s a very good question”, Claire answers, unable to keep from chuckling at Morgan’s totally unexpected reaction. “Honestly, I don’t know. It just… happened. And I’m glad it did.”

“Okay, that’s way too much sentimentalism in such a short amount of time”, Morgan decides, wrinkling her nose. “And I feel like I need to point out that we have a terrible tendency of almost making ourselves late these days, so we should get going before we accidentally screw up for good.”

Claire shakes her head and rolls her eyes, something that she’s pretty sure she’s done as often since meeting Morgan as during the first eighteen years of her life, but she doesn’t fight the change of subject. “Lead the way”, she replies, “even though this conversation is not over. But in the meantime… I’ll let you keep pretending you’re cold-hearted a little while longer.”

“Why do I put up with you again?” Morgan grumbles, but the warmth in her voice is impossible to miss.

“Because, as Alex would say, you have a soft spot for me”, Claire replies, grinning.

Morgan glares at her. “Shut up. And stop encouraging him.”

“Oh, come on”, Claire says, chuckling once more. “He was right. You and I both know you think of Alex as your friend.”

“Yes, and it’s embarrassing enough that you know that”, Morgan retorts. “The last thing I need is for him to hear it confirmed and get cocky about it!”

“You’re impossible”, Claire sighs.

Morgan shrugs. “Do you expect me to dispute that?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. I do have another question though”, Claire pushes, unable to stop herself. “Are you embarrassed I can tell without a shred of a doubt that you think of me as your friend, even though you never actually said it out loud?”

She’s really just teasing; she doesn’t mean anything by it, and she fully expects Morgan to keep the banter going, to answer with a quip or to tell her to shut up again – especially after Morgan said she had put up with enough sentimentalism for the day earlier. She absolutely doesn’t expect the question to be taken seriously and answered the same way instead.

“It’s not the same thing”, Morgan says quietly, looking away.

And that confuses Claire a great deal. “Why?”

“Because you’re…” Morgan shrugs, visibly awkward and uncomfortable now, “different.”

She’s trying. She’s really trying so hard to figure out how to make their now quite close friendship go both ways, and Claire feels a massive surge of warmth and affection spread inside of her when she understands that’s what’s happening. To the point where she finds herself a little too choked up to reply right away.

Besides, she’s not even sure what Morgan would be more comfortable with at the moment. An honest statement like “the feeling is mutual”? Or another teasing reply along the lines of “aww, so you’re saying I’m special”? Thankfully, she doesn’t need to figure it out in the end, because Morgan preemptively takes the choice out of her hands with narrowed eyes and a tone that’s too stern to be genuine.

“Don’t let it get to your head”, she says as she pushes open the door to the amphitheater.

That has the merit of being easier to reply to.

“I’ll try”, Claire whispers with a soft smile as she follows Morgan inside.

And she absolutely won’t admit it, whether now or ever, but as they sit down next to each other, alone in the front row as usual in this class but alone together for the first time of the year… She realizes that Morgan’s honest admission definitely got to her heart at least.

They go to Chick ‘n’ Bread that evening. Claire didn’t even bother to ask – she knows Morgan well enough by now to be able to guess the answer easily.

Jack is gone, they’re going back to their usual routine. It’s as simple as that.

Truth be told, were it not for the way Morgan walks inside the café-restaurant with her head held purposely high then back out of it the same way two hours later, it’d even look like nothing ever happened; and even though they both know better, it goes unacknowledged that day. Claire understands that Morgan is after a sense of normalcy for the time being, and she’s all too happy to give it to her.

Going back to Shaun’s for the first time in a week feels… good. She was too focused on Morgan until then to realize just how much she missed studying with him, but it’s been a part of her daily life on weekdays since the beginning of the year and she’s extremely happy to get it back.

Something is off, though. Something is off from the beginning, and Claire doesn’t know how to attribute it to anything other than her disappearance for a whole week.

“Okay, Shaun, please tell me what’s wrong”, she pleads after fifteen minutes of him rocking back and forth on his chair instead of reading the notes in front of him most of the time. It’s highly uncharacteristic for him; usually, he focuses on studying a little too much rather than not enough when he’s upsets, as if it was comforting for him to disappear in the world of science when he needs a break from the outside one.

“Carly sat next to me in class today.”

Oh. Oh. So maybe this has nothing to do with the change in their routine last week after all, Claire suddenly realizes. It would seem it rather has something to do with him figuring out he’s developing a crush on a certain curly-haired brunette.

She has to hold back a smile at the thought.

“And?” she insists gently.

It must have happened during the first class of the afternoon, the one Shaun doesn’t share with Morgan and her because he’s attending a lecture usually reserved for second-year students instead.

“It was nice”, Shaun says, still rocking back and forth in his chair.

Claire can’t stop herself from smiling any longer. “You like her.”

It feels a lot like stating the obvious, but she feels like Shaun might need a little push in the right direction.

“I don’t know.”

“Okay. Then what do you think of her?”

“I don’t know”, he repeats, louder than before.

Claire decides to try one last thing before he gets too upset. “But you want to spend more time with her.”

Shaun brings his hands up to press them against his temples. “I don’t know!”

The door to Lea’s room opens then, with her appearing on the threshold a second later.

“What’s going on here?” she asks, taking in the scene in front of her. “Oh, let me guess – does this have something to do with Carly?”

Claire looks up at her with surprise, and Lea chuckles as she walks over to them.

“You had a lot on your plate last week but I was here and I’ve been through this already, so let me catch you up: our dear Shaun has a crush that he doesn’t know how to handle.”

“No”, Shaun argues.

“Yes you do”, Lea insists. “You just haven’t admitted it yet. So, what is this specific crisis about?”

As Shaun keeps his hands over his temples and doesn’t answer, she turns to Claire for information. Claire who hesitates at first, unwilling to reveal something if Shaun doesn’t want it shared, but then she figures that Lea knows more about the evolution of his relationship with Carly than her at this point and it should be okay if she says this one fact. “She sat with him in class today.”

Lea grins and hops up to sit on the table next to Shaun’s forgotten notes. “Ooooh, that’s progress. Tell me more.”

For all Claire faulted her at the beginning of the year for being unclear what she wanted from him and even leading him on for a while, things have gone significantly better since then and she seems genuinely happy to see Shaun develop feelings for someone else. She apparently decided they were better off as friends, and no matter how much Claire learned to know and appreciate her over the months, she can’t help but feel like that was the right choice to make. It does seem to be more comfortable for them both.

“I don’t know what I feel for Carly”, Shaun says, wrapping his arms around his knees and rocking back and forth even more.

“That’s okay”, Claire rushes to reassure him. “You don’t need to have it all figured out now.”

“And that’s why we’re here to help”, Lea adds.

Despite being behind on her studying already, Claire pushes her binder to the side so she can give Shaun his undivided attention. She usually would let him process his feelings on his own so he doesn’t get overwhelmed, but considering how distracted he’s been since she arrived, it doesn’t seem to be the best course of action for once. Pushing too hard isn’t helping either, though, as evidenced by her first attempts, so she’s going to have to find the proper middle ground here.

“How did it feel like to sit with her today?”

“I… like it”, Shaun decides. “But I get distracted and that’s not good.”

Lea laughs. “It’s also normal. Can’t take your eyes off of her, can you?”

“I can. But it’s hard.”

“It would be weird if it wasn’t!”

“Have you noticed she glances at you a lot too?” Claire asks.

Lea looks at her with surprise. “How do you know?”

“The few of us first years who signed up for the introduction to pharmaceutics got lumped in with a class of second-year students, so I share a class with him and Carly twice a week.”

“Interesting”, Lea says, biting her lip and grinning. “I’m learning a lot of things today.”

“I don’t want to talk about her anymore”, Shaun interjects. Having both Claire and Lea making comments and asking questions at the same time appears to be a bit too much for him.

“Okay, then we can go back to studying”, Claire offers. “But one last thing first: do you want me to sit with Morgan on our pharmaceutics class tomorrow for once?”

Lea looks at her, confused. “What has that got to do with anything?”

“Carly and Morgan have been sharing a table since the beginning of the semester”, Claire explains.

“They know each other?”

“No. Carly just took the seat that was available next to Morgan in the lab during the first class, and it stuck.”

“Okay. Well, I vote for. That sounds like a good idea for everyone”, Lea gleefully says.

“You don’t have a say in this”, Claire reminds her, amused. “Shaun?”

“I don’t know!”

He’s getting worked up once more, so Claire immediately drops the topic. “That’s alright; we’ll talk about it again tomorrow if you want. In the meantime, I think we were supposed to suffer through a few chapters of organic chemistry together?”

“That doesn’t sound good”, Lea comments, wrinkling her nose and faking a shudder. “The opposite of good, even. So uh, as much as I love you both, I’m going to head back to the wonderful world of computers and leave you two to it now. Your classes aren’t my cup of tea at all.”

“Organic chemistry is hell”, Claire confirms, already exhausted at the mere thought of the pages upon pages that she still needs to go through.

Lea retreats to her room with a shrug, a wink, and a grin that won’t leave her face. “Have fun in hell, then!”

And, for once, Claire begins to understand Morgan’s recurring urge to strangle her.

There are some valid reasons behind it after all.

Claire is halfway to the door when Lea’s head pokes out of her room again.

“Are you leaving?”

“You ask that like you don’t know I always leave at 10pm.”

“You say that like you expect me to know what time it is”, Lea replies without missing a beat. “Wait a minute, I’m going to walk you downstairs.”

That’s rather unusual – one could even say unheard of –, but Claire has a feeling she knows why Lea wants to talk to her without Shaun there.

“You have thirty seconds”, she says.

“I don’t need that much. See? Jacket, shoes, keys, I’m ready. Let’s go.”

“Bye, Shaun!” Claire calls out before they leave the apartment. Then, once the door is closed and they begin walking to the staircase, she tells Lea: “I’m guessing this is about Morgan.”

“Spot on! How is she? And I want a real answer, not her usual ‘I will tell you I’m fine under any circumstances’ bullshit. Also, is that creepy guy going to show up again? I’m guessing he was a no show tonight since you’re back to spending some time here, but I need a proper forecast with those little things called details included in it – well, whatever details you can give me without her murdering you for telling me about them, at least.”

Claire smiles, amused. “You really do know her well by now, don’t you? She’s… handling it. He’s gone for good, so that’s going to help. A lot. But, just… be nice and go easy on her for a little while, okay?”

“Are you sure I should? Because even though she doesn’t like me, I think she secretly enjoys how often she gets to tell me to fuck off.”

“Huh… I don’t think so, but subconsciously, maybe?”

They glance at each other with a knowing look and burst out laughing.

“She’s one of a kind, isn’t she?” Lea asks.

Claire nods in agreement, and her voice softens without her even really realizing it. “Oh yeah. That she is.”

And there it is again. That look Lea has been giving her for weeks, if not months, when it comes to Morgan. She wants to ask about it, for once, because Alex and Jenny often look at her the exact same way too and she’s really starting to need a proper explanation from either one of them at least, but Lea interrupts her train of thought with a question that she wasn’t expecting and anything related to that look immediately fades to the back of her mind as a result.

“How are you doing, though?”

Too startled to answer immediately, Claire stays silent at first. They reached the bottom of the stairs and they’re now in the hallway, standing a few feet from the door without either of them moving to walk outside; Claire is pretty sure she couldn’t get her legs to work even if she wanted to, though, because no one asked her that yet and it feels like her mind froze while she was trying to figure it out.

How is she?

“I’m… in dire need of a few nights of eight hours of uninterrupted sleep”, she finally answers. “Other than that? Honestly, I’m not really sure.”

“I figured.” Lea fixes her with what Claire guesses is supposed to be a stern stare, but unfortunately falls way short of that. “Remember to take care of yourself sometimes too, okay? It’s not all about Morgan, no matter how… important she is to you now. You trying to shoulder everything for the both of you isn’t going to be any better than her trying to push through everything all the time without acknowledging that it’ll be damaging in the long run. I’m just saying.”

That’s so not something Claire was expecting to be told today… but she can’t deny that Lea’s statement feels a lot like a truth that she shouldn’t be avoiding forever. Even though she will for now.

“What’s your major again?” she asks with a weak chuckle and a voice that’s a lot less steady than she wishes it was.

Thankfully, Lea runs with her obvious deflection.

“I major in trying to get Shaun to use more or less healthy coping mechanisms instead of what his parents forced him to develop”, she quips. “It’s not too hard to extend that to you.”

Claire sighs. “I noticed.”

“Good. Now go home and sleep”, Lea orders. “And know that you have my blessing to punch your noisy roommates, if it turns out to be necessary to achieve some peace and quiet.”

Claire shrugs. “They got better. Ruby, especially – you know, the one who’d play loud music whenever she felt like it? She calmed down a great deal after we collectively threatened to throw her out if she didn’t learn that cohabiting is synonymous with compromises. Desperate measures, but…”

“But it worked. So you have no excuse now.”

“Organic chemistry disagrees with you, unfortunately”, Claire grumbles. “But yes, I will try to get some proper sleep.”

Lea narrows her eyes. “You’d better.”

“I will!”

“Good!”

Claire shakes her head and they smile at each other for a moment, realizing for the first time the strength of the bond that has grown to unite them. The idea of a hug is hanging in the air though it feels too awkward for them to do anything with it right now; and so, in the end, they part ways after exchanging nothing more than simple goodbyes like they’ve done a hundred times before instead.

Truth be told, becoming friends with Lea is not something Claire ever expected to happen. But now that it has, at some point, somehow, she’s glad and grateful to know that she can count on her when it matters. She doesn’t regret anything that led to this, even just for a second.

(… And she lied, earlier.

She absolutely doesn’t want to strangle Lea after all.)

Chapter Text

Claire gets pulled aside by Alex the next morning, before the start of the first class, to be asked a question that leaves her with a major feeling of déjà vu.

“I know Morgan told me to back off”, he blurts out, “and I will, but I just wanted to know if she really is okay and you’re probably the only person in the world outside of her who can tell me that at the moment. She tends to pretend that she’s fine even when she’s obviously not – I mean, she clearly spent last week doing just that, and I— Why are you smiling?”

“Because I’ve had the exact same conversation with Lea yesterday. Great minds think alike, I guess”, Claire replies, chuckling quietly. “As for Morgan…”

She trails off, not sure how to explain that Morgan is doing rather fine considering what happened to her to someone who’s not even supposed to know that something did happen last week.

Alex seems to understand why she hesitates, though, because he clarifies: “Look, I’m not asking you to betray her trust or her privacy; I really just want to know if she’s struggling so I can help – even if it’s only from the shadows. If it makes you feel better, I can tell you what I’ve guessed so far? That way, you won’t have to reveal anything I don’t already know?”

Claire considers it for a second. “That sounds like a good idea. Go ahead.”

“Something happened at the beginning of last week; something that took an emotional toll on her. Something you can’t tell me about – I’ve accepted it’s likely I’ll never know what is was – but that I’m guessing was resolved during the weekend, since Morgan was back to acting like Morgan yesterday”, Alex states without hesitation.

Claire doesn’t directly confirm a word he said, but she does nod almost imperceptibly and look at him with renewed respect. Honestly, she’s impressed: the only thing he didn’t get right was that Morgan made Jack go back where he came from on Friday and not during the weekend, but he had no way to guess that.

“Once a cop, always a cop, huh?”

Alex shrugs. “The instincts don’t go away that easily… and I think they never will. But anyway, is Morgan really okay now? Or is she just… back to being in control enough that she can pretend she’s not impacted anymore? That’s my real question here.”

“A bit of both, I think”, Claire replies after carefully considering all the answers she could give him. Truth be told, she’s not sure where on the scale Morgan really is at the moment anyway.

“But there’s nothing I can do to help. While you can”, Alex says. He doesn’t phrase it as a question, and doesn’t wait for Claire to confirm either. “You two have really gotten close.”

Claire lets out an amused puff of air. “Against all odds, yes. It seems we have.”

“I’m glad she has someone like you in her life. For all she can be an opinionated pain in the ass who constantly wants to act like nothing ever impacts her… No one is that tough all the time.”

They hold each other’s eyes for a moment, letting a world of understanding settle between them, and Claire realizes that Alex has probably been aware that behind Morgan’s confident exterior hides a fair amount of vulnerability for even longer than she has. He’s just also all too aware that Morgan would never admit that to him, no matter how much he cares about her.

“We should get going”, Alex says, voice soft as he breaks the silence that fell upon them. “I’ll see you at lunch, okay?”

Grateful not to have to figure out a way to verbally acknowledge his previous statement, Claire nods and follows him to the amphitheater.

“See you in a few hours”, she whispers when they go their separate ways, him climbing the stairs to get to the back of the amphitheater while she goes to take her usual seat in the front row.

Her usual seat, at Shaun’s right. Her usual seat that now systematically features Morgan to her own right, even when – as she discovers that morning – she’s the last one to arrive.

She likes that a lot.

She likes that Morgan feels comfortable enough to sit there on her own, without needing to be encouraged to do it anymore.

She likes that she gets to spend most of her days surrounded by her two closest friends now.

There sure are worst ways to survive med school.

“You need to sit with Claire in our pharmaceutics class today”, Shaun enthusiastically declares halfway through their lunch break.

Morgan merely looks up from her plate to raise her eyebrows at him. “Need to?”

“Yes.”

“I’m fairly certain I don’t need to do anything, besides attending that class.”

Claire cuts in before the conversation can get heated. “Be nice, it’s for a good cause”, she tells Morgan. “Besides, don’t you want us to sit together for once? I’m hurt.”

“No you’re not”, Morgan says, calling out her teasing without missing a beat. “And, as you already damn well know, I don’t mind sitting with you. I do, however, mind being told what to do.”

“Of course you do. Then let me rephrase Shaun’s question: will you please sit with me today?” Claire asks rather dramatically, causing Alex to burst into quiet laughter on the other side of the table.

Morgan gives her an exasperated look, too fond to be genuinely annoyed, and Claire has to bite her lip to keep from grinning at the sight.

“Can I at least know why?”

“I want to sit with Carly!” Shaun exclaims.

“You should have led with that,” Morgan pointedly tells him, then shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

“Forgive me for being an average student who doesn’t take advanced classes and all that, but uh… who’s Carly?” Alex asks, obviously unable to withhold the question any longer.

“She’s a second-year student and Morgan’s usual lab partner in our pharmaceutics class”, Claire answers.

“She’s nice”, Shaun adds.

Alex immediately understands what’s truly going on. “Ooooh. Someone’s got a little crush”, he says, smiling.

“No”, Shaun argues. “I just like spending time with her!”

Claire doesn’t give Alex time to open his mouth to answer.

“You know, it’s becoming really unsettling to hear you react the same way Lea does almost word for word”, she tells him, and she kind of means it. That’s the second time it’s happened in half a day; it’s… strange. “And no, we’re not going to debate Shaun’s feelings, so don’t even try.”

She knows from experience, after seeing it happen last night, that Shaun doesn’t deal well with having his own understanding of how he views Carly be challenged, and she doesn’t want him to get overwhelmed this time too. If he needs to process what everyone else can see happening clear as day at his own pace, then she’ll make sure he gets to do it without being constantly pushed from all sides.

“Got it”, Alex says. Then, with a wistful smile as he looks around the table, he adds: “Ah, to be young and in love… It was the good old days. Savor it while you can, all of you. Life gets in the way fast after that.”

Claire chuckles dryly. She has no idea what prompted him to say that to all of them or what he hoped to achieve with his advice, but he chose the wrong audience. “We’re in med school, Alex. I’d say life is already in the way.”

“Fair point”, he admits. “All the more reason not to waste time.”

“And yet you insist on wasting mine right now”, Morgan interjects.

Claire can’t help but notice that she’s a lot more tense now than she was five minutes ago. It’s obvious why; all this talk about romantic relationships must be uncomfortable for her, especially considering Jack’s reappearance and all the terrible memories he brought back with him last week, so she has to be searching for the best way to escape it without giving away that something’s wrong.

Claire immediately takes it upon herself to put an end to this conversation.

“That’s enough on this topic for one day anyway”, she says, not leaving any room for discussion. “How about we all commiserate about how many projects and assignments the professors have warned us we’re going to be given in the upcoming days instead?”

“Why would you remind us?” Alex bemoans. “I’m trying to ignore that for as long as I can!”

“How’s it working for you so far?”

“Not great”, he admits.

“Same for me. I’m already struggling not to fall behind on any class – I gave up on trying to stay ahead a long time ago –; I can’t imagine what it’ll be like when we need to add several projects on top of constant studying again. I know we survived that during the first semester and I also know it’s not going to get any easier as the years go by, but… it’s early April and I’m already exhausted on a permanent basis. So the next few months are going to be fun.”

Morgan shrugs. “It sucks, but we knew what we were signing up for. Surviving will be our key word for a while. Those who can’t or who realize that they don’t have enough motivation to go through this for years will drop out soon; med school is designed to be hell from the start for a reason. It’s better to realize that you don’t have what it takes after a few months rather than a few years.”

“I get what you’re trying to say, but your reasoning is flawed”, Claire says, frowning. “How about the students who get sick for a few weeks and don’t have enough time to catch up on everything they missed afterwards, as early as the first year? Even worse if they have a chronic condition? Perhaps they’ll drop out because they can’t see themselves overcoming that, no matter how amazing they may have been if they’d had the chance to become doctors, and that sucks. Or how about the major discrepancy between those who have to work to pay for their studies and those who have some more ‘free’ time because they don’t have to worry about money? Besides, not everyone wants to be a surgeon; it just so happens that all four of us do by some coincidence. I agree that the last few years should make sure we’re up to the task for the very demanding specialties, it is necessary, but how about the people who’d rather be GPs? Yes, they need a lot of knowledge too, and yes, they need to learn how to handle pressure like we do, but not to the same extent. Honestly, I think that trying to break us from the very start is the worst way to get doctors that’ll be healthy and motivated by the end of med school. And we should be these things to be good at our jobs once we start our careers.”

“I’m with Claire”, Alex agrees. “You’re in no state to help, much less save, other people in the long run if you’re already hanging by a thread yourself right from the start.”

“Not everyone finishes med school hanging by a thread”, Morgan argues. “As for everything else you said? Well, life isn’t fair. You don’t always get what you want, or what you deserve, or what you need. Is the current system bad for the people who will miss opportunities? Yes. But I’d rather the bar is set too high rather than too low to make sure only the best will make it, with a lot of hard work and a bit of luck. That’s how it’s always been.”

Claire shakes her head. “That doesn’t mean it’s right. Would you still say the same thing if it turned out you were one of the unlucky ones? If, no matter how much effort you put in and how much motivation you have, how driven you are, you had to give up on your dream because something happened in your life and you couldn’t catch up in time? Would you still think it’s fair?”

For a reason Claire doesn’t understand, the question makes Morgan flinch slightly before she juts her chin out with defiance. “I’d never give up. No matter what, I’d keep fighting.”

“I have no doubt you would. But it doesn’t mean that someone else could, and fighting doesn’t always mean success either.”

Alex, who keeps looking at them in turn as they speak, lets out a low whistle that causes Claire to turn to him.

“It had been a while since the last time I saw you two argue about something”, he remarks. “I’m having flashbacks from the beginning of the year… I won’t lie, it’s not exactly the most enjoyable thing ever. Though your tones aren’t as sharp and biting anymore at least; my ears definitely appreciate that.”

He’s right. It’s been a while since they moved beyond a teasing back-and-forth, and Claire can’t deny that it does feel weird to be discussing a serious difference of opinion again. But there are still major differences compared to a few months ago, though; if only because they’ll probably end up agreeing to disagree, while at the beginning of the year they would have snapped at each other again and again until they had to part ways. There was nothing remotely close to respect between them back then – not to even mention friendship –, but now… Now, they can admit that they don’t see eye-to-eye without ending up at each other’s throats.

That said, there’s one thing Claire becomes aware of after Alex’s interruption: she realizes that a part of her kind of missed arguing with Morgan. Not because of the argument itself, but because it makes a sort of thrill course through her veins; the same thrill that made her rise to the bait every damn time at the beginning of the year, and that rendered her unable to just ignore Morgan even when she should have. (Even when the logical side of her wanted to just ignore Morgan.)

Right now, she doesn’t like being at odds with Morgan again. She doesn’t like how harsh her opinion is, doesn’t think that it’s right, doesn’t want them to be disagreeing on this.

She does appreciate feeling that thrill again, though.

It’s a strange discovery to make.

And considering the spark that she now notices has been dancing in Morgan’s eyes since they started challenging each other’s views again, she guesses that she’s not the only one who enjoys the return of that thrill – accompanied, of course, by the co-occurring electric tension that always filled their arguments from the very start.

Disconcerted, it takes her a moment to come up with a response.

“We can’t always be on the same page”, she just says once her brain kick-starts itself back into action.

“It was starting to look like it”, Alex replies. “And now that I think about it, it really feels strange considering there was not one thing you managed to agree on at the beginning of the year.” He raises a finger and adds: “That said, please note that I’m not complaining about the change at all.”

“I don’t think anyone is”, Morgan points out. “Though nothing is miraculous, because I really don’t get Claire’s opinion this time.”

“That’s because you’re too competitive for your own good”, Claire replies, sighing. “Not to mention that your never-ending quest of perfection, combined with your refusal to admit that you can’t always push though everything life throws at you within a constraining time frame, won’t let you see that not everyone can approach med school the same way you do. Sometimes people struggle, and that should be something they can realistically come back from.”

She does know why Morgan considers that surviving a hostile environment means fighting again and again unless you’re miraculously offered a small respite every once in a while, though, and why she can’t imagine another valid pathway: it’s because doing this has been her entire life up to this point. Morgan grew up with a family to whom she was invisible at best, was alone for most of her childhood and teenage years, eventually found someone who understood her only to be betrayed then abused by him in the end, and still made it to her first year of med school as one of the top students there. 

It makes sense that she expects the rest of her life to keep following the same pattern. It makes sense that, after surviving all those things without breaking down, she sees people’s need for a break sometimes as a weakness that they may just as well be punished for.

Because admitting that it’s okay to struggle and still get support instead of being ruthlessly discarded would mean accepting that you can be allowed what she never was, and it’s not fair. It’s not fair if others can afford to stumble, when she would have been spiralling on her own if she ever did because no one would have cared to help her back up.

Claire suddenly realizes that, for Morgan, confronting the fact that med school doesn’t have to be this hard also means grappling with the terrible truth that her own childhood shouldn’t have been this hard either. That she could have reached this point in her life, become just as brilliant as she is now, in a different environment – one that didn’t force her to learn how to take everything in stride.

Because Morgan probably holds onto the idea that, at least, it was worth it if it taught her how to survive what a lot of other people won’t. And if it turns out that you can reach that point under different circumstances? Worse – if there should never be a reason to know how to survive those things anyway, because they should never exist in the first place?

… What does Morgan have left?

Claire feels her heart twist painfully in her chest.

“Nothing should ever be this hard”, she adds softly. “Or, at least, not without a very good reason.”

Something flashes in Morgan’s eyes. Something that tells Claire that she understood there are two meanings to the statement, and that she desperately wishes she wasn’t being seen to such an extent.

Honestly, Claire doubts that Morgan ever shared so much of herself with anyone else before – with maybe Jack as the sole exception –, and thus also doubts that she anticipated just how much repercussions her opening up would have. But it’s too late to take any of it back, and Morgan will have to learn how to deal with the fact that Claire can analyze things through an additional angle now.

“Selecting only the best doctors is a very good reason in my book”, Morgan snaps.

Claire decides then that she doesn’t want to be having this conversation anymore. It doesn’t feel right to keep letting it play out; not here, not like this, not when Morgan is far from ready for it yet.

“Then I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree for the time being”, Claire says, a sad smile on her face as she attempts not to show just how much she hurts for Morgan, now that she’s painfully aware of what she went through.

They’ll have to revisit this topic again one day, eventually – Claire knows this. After all, Morgan can’t avoid dealing with all the trauma that she accumulated growing up forever. But accepting to confront your past takes time and starting to heal from it takes even longer; and at this point, Morgan is rather running in the opposite direction of what is going to be a long, hard road rather than even considering stepping on it.

It’s okay, though.

They can take this one day at a time.

When Carly sees Claire sitting in her usual chair next to Morgan as she enters the lab, her step distinctly falters for a second before she keeps pushing forward, albeit she doesn’t seem too certain what she should do now. Claire, who kind of expected something like that to happen, rushes to provide the half-white lie explanation she made up a minute ago.

“I’m sorry, I know you usually sit here, but the recent classes have referenced organic chemistry a lot and it’s really not my strong suit… So Morgan offered to go over what the professor just explained when we switch to practical work halfway through the class.” She shrugs in what she hopes is a casual manner, then adds: “I’d ask Shaun, but I know he hates talking too much during class, so… this seemed like a better solution. Do you mind sitting with him for once?”

It’s not technically a lie: Morgan is better than her at organic chemistry, even though she doesn’t particularly appreciate the subject either, and she’ll gladly go over what Claire didn’t get the first time as they do whatever today’s experiment will turn out to be… but it’s also not the actual reason why they switched seats. And if the way Carly narrows her eyes at Claire is any indication, she doesn’t seem to be fooled by the excuse she’s been given. At all.

Though she doesn’t appear to mind the opportunity to spend more time with Shaun either. Which is a good sign.

“It’s not a problem for me”, Carly replies with a tight smile that tells Claire that she’s still weary about her motives, even though she won’t say it openly. She then turns around to look at the empty seat next to Shaun, and asks him with a gentle voice: “Is it okay if I sit with you today in this class too?”

He takes a deep breath before he answers, loud enough to earn a few annoyed glances from the people at the bench behind him. “Yes!”

And so here Carly sits for the duration of the class, while Claire does her best to hide a victorious smile as it happens. First step: complete. Result: success.

Now on to making that arrangement permanent, if that’s what Shaun decides he prefers in the future.

“Did you see the look on Pr Melendez’ face when he saw us sitting next to each other earlier?” Claire asks Morgan once they get to Chick ‘n’ Bread that evening, right after his class. “He was so surprised; you could tell he did not expect it.”

“The shock on his face at first was comical, yes. But the smugness that followed? I appreciated that a lot less”, Morgan grumbles. “I don’t like proving people right about something I did not agree with.”

“What a very you thing to say”, Claire remarks, snorting with laughter. “But I have to give it to him; I think he’s indeed the only reason why we’re friends today. I don’t think we would have stopped arguing every five seconds if it hadn’t been for that project – though I would have never believed that could happen when he paired us up at the beginning of the year. Ever.”

“Oh, I fully thought he was out of his mind. The idea that—”

“Here’s my favorite grump!” Lea exclaims, startling them both. “Is this week treating you better than the last? I hope it is.”

Morgan keeps talking as if she didn’t hear her. “The idea that we could ever be a great team for school work, not to even mention—”

“Awww, I thought we had made progress. You’re ignoring me now?” Lea says, pouting.

“I’ll consider replying when you stop cutting me off and calling me ‘grump’”, Morgan retorts, finally looking up at her.

“But you keep giving me reasons to call you that! Like, right now!”

“Hello to you too, Lea”, Claire says with mock offense. “I’m here as usual, just in case you didn’t see me.”

Lea laughs, completely unbothered. “I know, but I saw you yesterday and I’ll see you again tonight. You’re not my priority here. Anyway, do either of you want something to eat or drink?”

“Just a coffee will be fine for me”, Claire decides. “My usual order.”

Morgan considers the question for a second. “I’ll go with some mint tea. I’m not very hungry either.”

“Coming!”

Lea walks back to the counter to go get their drinks, and Claire raises her eyebrows at Morgan questioningly.

“What?”

“You are usually… a lot colder to her.”

It’s true. Even though Morgan talked to Lea like she usually would, at least words-wise, her tone was a lot less biting than it almost always is.

“I’m in a good mood”, Morgan replies dismissively, but Claire sees right through her. Whatever happened in the five minutes it took her to go get their stuff last Friday while Lea and Morgan stayed together in the restroom, it was enough for an undercurrent of respect to appear between them now.

Claire isn’t complaining about it. If anything, she’s been waiting for Morgan to give Lea a chance for months now.

“Are you sure about that… grump?”

Morgan glowers at her. “I will walk out on you”, she threatens.

“You wouldn’t dare”, Claire says, knowing full well Morgan would dare.

“Try me.”

Claire has to bite her lip to keep from grinning. “I won’t, purely because we do have work to do, but I get why Lea loves riling you up so much. It’s so easy.”

Morgan scoffs. “That’s rich, coming from Saint Claire.”

Claire lets out a mock-scandalized gasp. “You didn’t just… Grump.”

“Saint Claire.”

“GRUMP.”

Morgan glares at her even harder than before. “Are you about done?”

Strangely, even though this is not an argument per se, the same tension than during lunch break has risen between them again. It gives Claire pause; she thought she’d figured out exactly why and when it would appear, she really did, but this… this is different. And she couldn’t pinpoint the subtle difference no matter how hard she tried, but she does feel it. Distinctly.

“You’re the one who started it this time!” she exclaims.

“With good reason.”

“Maybe. But now, can we get to work for real?”

“You’re the one who’s been keeping us from starting”, Morgan points out as she opens the binder she already got out of her bag.

Since she has no idea how to reply to that, Claire simply shakes her head and rolls her eyes, in a way that is starting to feel strangely familiar and even oddly comforting by now – because if Morgan is being the Morgan who makes her roll her eyes ten times a day, then Morgan is okay. And even though Claire knows that beyond all the walls Morgan is using to keep the rest of the world far away, she keeps hurting over and over again because of burdens that should be too heavy to carry alone, it’s still reassuring to see that she’s able to keep those walls up as usual at least. Especially compared to last week.

They haven’t talked about that Friday night yet. Claire can tell that Morgan is not ready to acknowledge that it happened for the time being; and as much as her heart aches, as much as she wants nothing more than to be able to help, she knows that Morgan needs to process the events of that night alone first before it can be brought up again.

Time. What Morgan needs is time, and Claire will give that to her.

It is, after all, the one and only thing you cannot heal without.

Chapter Text

Claire crosses paths with Jared in the corridors on Thursday evening.

She’s heading to the side exit so she can leave the building as close as possible to the bus stop that’ll get her to the shelter, as usual, when she notices him rounding a corner and walking towards her – with a smile on his face as soon as he spots her.

Shit. Shit. With everything that happened, she had completely forgotten about him.

“Hi Claire”, he says, waving, when they get close enough to not have to scream to be heard. “It’s been a while!”

It has – it really has. She can’t remember talking to him since… since somewhere before spring break, and even then, she can’t pinpoint when it last happened exactly. His tone is not accusatory, though; he genuinely just seems happy to see her, and that makes Claire feel just a little bit worse for pretty much forgetting his existence entirely.

“Hi”, she answers. “Long time no see indeed. How have you been?”

“Good. I mean, we’re all trying to stay afloat however we can, I guess”, he says, shrugging, “but other than that I’m doing okay. How about you?”

“Pretty much the same. The holidays can’t come soon enough, but I’ll make it through.”

“Hopefully, we all will.”

He brings his hand up to rub at the nape of his neck, looking self-conscious all of a sudden, and Claire doesn’t quite get why until he starts speaking again.

“So um, about that date I mentioned once…”

Oh. Right. Right. That happened a long time ago, but she never actually said either a firm yes or a firm no. And she did think about it once or twice more during the first semester, but it didn’t quite come at the forefront of her mind again since then. The last time it did was probably during spring break, when Jenny weirdly assumed she was thinking of him while she was actually wondering how Morgan was doing.

“You don’t have to accept or anything”, Jared rushes to add when an answer doesn’t come quickly enough. “I’m not trying to pressure you, I swear. I just… I’d just like to know where I stand, because we’re going to be drowning in homework and projects again soon – and you did say maybe when things calmed down but they’re about to pick up again, and so um, I just thought… I um… yeah.”

Claire does her best not to wince at the realization that he’s probably been expecting the subject to be brought up again for months now. And she doesn’t owe him anything, she knows that, but she still… can’t imagine giving him a flat-out no as an answer after all this time. She just can’t.

“Would Monday work for you?”

His eyes actually light up with joy. “Sure!”

“Look, I don’t want you to get your hopes up too much”, Claire immediately warns him. “I’m going to be perfectly honest with you right now – I kind of doubt something will come out of that date.”

Unless what she expected, his smile doesn’t dim.

“But you’re giving me a chance. That’s really all I ask.”

With the terrible feeling that she’s just delaying the inevitable moment when she breaks his heart, Claire smiles back weakly and gestures in the vague direction of the door at the end of the corridor behind him.

“I need to go, but I’ll see you on Monday then?”

“Of course. I know a great place, if you trust my choice. Is 7pm okay with you?”

“6pm would be better so I can still go to Shaun’s afterwards”, Claire answers honestly. “And yes, I’ll trust you with the place. Just text me the add— Oh, wait, I don’t think you have my number.” She searches for a piece of paper and a pencil in her bag so she can write it down, then hands it to him. “Now you have it. Text me the address, and we’ll meet up there directly.”

“At 6pm, got it.”

“Great!”

“Indeed! But uh, don’t let me keep you any longer if you need to leave. I’ll just…” he trails off, awkward and fumbling for words again. “I’ll just, um, yeah, go. Bye!”

“Bye, Jared”, Claire replies before she walks away, biting back a smile at how nervous he can get around her.

Honestly, she’s kind of looking forward to that date, if only for the fact that it’ll be something different for once – two hours or so of being able to push everything away from her mind, of getting to just enjoy the moment, relax, and focus on nothing else than having a good time. It’ll be a distinct change of pace compared to the rest of her life these days.

And if it doesn’t turn out too great as a date? Well, then they can always morph it into a dinner between two friends getting to know each other better.

It works either way.

Claire spends her entire Friday trying to figure out the best way to tell Morgan that she’s bailing on her on Monday for once. And by trying, she really means failing.

It shouldn’t be that hard. It should be as easy as a comment in passing, or a heads up as they get to Chick ‘n’ Bread that evening that she won’t be there on Monday, but she finds that she can’t quite will the words out of her mouth for some reason. To the point where she grows more and more anxious at the mere idea of mentioning it as time keeps flying by, and ends up not saying anything at all because that seems like the easiest course of action for the time being.

She’s only stalling. She knows that. She knows that she’ll have to tell Morgan on Monday anyway, and that Morgan might not appreciate being told on such short notice.

She knows.

But nothing about this is rational. Nothing about this makes any freaking kind of sense at all.

And yet, she still can’t tell Morgan that she has a date on Monday. Because it weirdly doesn’t feel right, even though there’s no reason why that would be.

It’s frustrating to say the least.

Once they sit down at Chick ‘n’ Bread, Claire fully gives up on trying. It’s been distracting her all day already, and right now, she needs to study, not freak out about telling a friend that she has a date – that will, besides, most probably not go any further – like the absolute idiot that she is.

So she pushes it away from her mind, and they set about studying. Then studying some more. Until—

“You’re late”, Morgan says, frowning, after checking the watch on her wrist at some point.

“What? Oh, no – I’m not going to Shaun’s tonight. He’s meeting with Pr Glassman to discuss classes and schedules and, I don’t know, personal stuff I guess. They’ve known each other for years.”

“Really? Huh. I guess that explains how he got into med school… Being friends with the president certainly helped.”

Claire frowns. “What is that supposed to mean? Shaun got here on his own merits.”

“Grades-wise? Sure. But I highly doubt there weren’t some… debates about letting him in when the board discussed this year’s admissions.” When Claire looks at her with some level of disbelief, Morgan tilts her head to the side and shakes it. “You know, for someone so smart, your willingness to have faith in people as a default can make you very naive at times. Everyone has biases – and if they go unchallenged, they’re very quick to turn into prejudice for most. Just think back to Pr Melendez’ behavior with Shaun at the beginning of the year! He seems to have changed his mind somewhat and to be willing to give him a chance now, but that doesn’t negate the fact that his original opinion was formed well before he even saw Shaun for the first time. So believe me or not, but I’m ready to bet that Pr Glassman had to plead his case in front of the board for a good long while before they agreed to let him in.”

“That’s ridiculous. I mean, I see your point, but if it did happen, it’s just… stupid. Shaun is amazing! So what if he’s autistic? It’ll make it harder for him to communicate with his patients? Well I’ve met my fair share of doctors with horrendous bedside manners, and it wasn’t because they struggled with human interaction – it was because they were just plain assholes. But they don’t screen for assholes, now do they?”

Morgan looks at her with a smile that starts out slightly patronizing but really just turns sad.

“If the world was good and fair, Claire, neither of us would have grown up to be who we are now.”

“Yeah, I know”, Claire answers with a weary sigh. “I just… hold out hope that not all of it is that terrible.”

“How is that working out for you so far?”

Claire rests her head on her joined hands and holds her stare. “I don’t know, you tell me. Would you rather I hadn’t given you a chance? Hadn’t been willing to care to look past your repeated attempts to push me away after you gave me the wonderful solution of bringing my mom to New Beginnings? Hadn’t decided that there was more to you than meets the eye, and you might not actually be that bad after all?”

Morgan looks away and fiddles with her napkin for a moment.

“But my question had nothing to do with how I feel about it”, she says slowly. “I asked you how your optimism affects you.” There’s a beat of silence, and then: “What do you really get out of this friendship, Claire?”

“What do I—” Claire repeats, too stunned by what Morgan just asked to even realize she’s echoing the words out loud. “I— I get a friend; what kind of question is that?!”

“But you—” Morgan huffs and brings her gaze back up to drill it into Claire’s eyes, though the determined and slightly defiant flame that dances there does a poor job at hiding the genuine worry, if not even fear, that simmers just underneath. But when she speaks again, she doesn’t waver anymore – she gets the words out like they’re a challenge, so that if she loses it it’ll at least be with her head held high. “You keep helping me and being there for me, but all I’ve given you in return so far are layers of worry and anxiety piled up on each other. I just don’t get what you can possibly gain from that. Wouldn’t your life be easier if you hadn’t bothered with me?”

“Friendship is not a contest, Morgan”, Claire answers softly, though with a tinge of exasperation in her voice as well. “Yes, you need my help more than the other way around these days, but that doesn’t mean anything. I have no doubt that if our roles were switched, you’d do the same thing for me – better yet, I know that you would do the same thing for me, because you’re the one who helped me first before we were even friends. And honestly? If my mom was still around and I still had to manage her – if I was still stuck trying to get her to let me live my life in peace… I might not even be here anymore. I’m not sure I could have dealt with her and med school at the same time, or at the very least not with the grades I have now. But that’s not even the point – I’m friends with you because I genuinely like having you around, at least when you’re not trying to pretend you’re nothing more than an arrogant asshole who’s above everyone else like you did when we first met. So you know what? Maybe my life would be easier on some level if we hadn’t gotten close, yes. Maybe. But it would also be a lot more lonely and empty.” Claire breathes in, then makes sure her voice is as firm and unwavering as it can possibly be before she says the conclusion that she truly means. “So no, I do not regret it. Not for a second.”

She understands why Morgan expects her to have a specific reason for them to be friends. She knows it is because that’s all Morgan has ever known in her life – whether with Mia, so neither of them were alone, or with Jack, who ended up making it clear there was an ulterior motive to it for him. But that doesn’t mean that’s how things need to turn out every time.

And she can’t quite seem to figure out how to make Morgan understand that she’s not going anywhere anytime soon by means other than constant reassurance. (But if that’s what it takes over and over again, well… She’s fine with offering it every time.)

“Come back to my place with me tonight”, she blurts out the second the idea crosses her mind. “Not because you need to be there for your own safety this time, or even because you didn’t want to be alone like what happened during the winter holidays, nothing like that – let’s just… hang out. Let’s spend some time together, with or without studying, just because we can. How does that sound?”

Claire bites her lip once she’s done talking, worried she pushed too hard and Morgan will bolt, but Morgan just looks at her with a small, grateful smile, takes a deep breath, and nods. Honestly, she seems rather relieved that she didn’t have to figure out how to reply to Claire’s long rant about friendship and could just deal with a simple question instead.

“Okay. Okay, yes, why not.”

Jenny greets them with an amused “hi, first roommate, hi, nearly fifth roommate at this point” that causes Claire to narrow her eyes at her.

“Play nice, Jen.”

“I am very much playing nice, and you also know I’m right”, Jenny retorts, laughing. “I’m pretty sure I’ve heard her voice more than some of our actual roommates during the past two weeks – don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind, but it’s a fact that she’s spending quite some time in this apartment these days. Anyway, are you two going to pretend to be social for once or will you disappear in your room in five seconds as usual?”

“It depends”, Morgan answers before Claire can. “How much do you like getting your ass kicked at card games?”

Jenny grins. “Is that a challenge? Or do you just think you’re unbeatable?”

“She’s really good, but not unbeatable”, Claire chimes in. “Especially at Monopoly.” Turning to look at Morgan, she asks: “Did you bring the Monopoly board?”

“No”, Morgan says shortly.

“Didn’t want to risk losing again?” Claire teases.

“No”, Morgan repeats. “There was just not enough space for it in my backpack with my binders and the rest of my stuff already in it.”

“Uh-huh. Sure. I’m going to pretend that’s indeed the reason why you didn’t bring it.”

“It is.”

Jenny clears her throat, causing both Claire and Morgan to look back at her.

“I feel like there’s some history here I don’t know about.”

Claire chuckles and shrugs impishly. “Morgan is a sore loser is all you need to know.”

“Oh, because you like losing, maybe?” Morgan retorts, glaring.

“No, especially not against you… But I didn’t lose, now did I?”

That causes a little flame to light up in Morgan’s eyes. “Oh, but you will. Today.”

Jenny looks at them in turn with highly raised eyebrows. “Are you sure you want me to play? Because it sure sounds like you two have an ongoing exclusive situation that you need to settle first.”

“A third player won’t change that”, Morgan replies offhandedly. “And as much as winning feels great, it’s always more gratifying to be the first out of three rather than two.”

“I take it she’s always like that?” Jenny asks Claire, who sighs and nods. “Yup, sounds in line with everything I heard at the beginning of the year – although I recall just how much you hated it at the time. Things have sure taken a, uh, turn since then, haven’t they?”

The way Jenny phrases her question and the look on her face seem to indicate that she’s trying to hint at something very specific, but Claire can’t for the life of her figure out what that could be. So she just lets it go.

“Will you play or not?” Morgan asks impatiently.

Jenny sits up on the couch where she’s currently sprawled and shrugs. “Yeah, sure. I won’t go down without a fight; that would be very uncharacteristic of me. Bring it on!”

As Morgan crouches down to open her backpack and get two card decks out of it, Jenny looks around the room with a frown on her face.

“Wait, you two lo— You two take the couch, I’ll go grab myself a chair. I think there’d be a bit too much cheating if we all tried to squeeze in on that poor couch. That said – did you really bring card decks? We have some right here in this apartment!”

Claire snorts with laughter. “In theory, yes, but be realistic: how long would it take to scout each room to find all the cards and put the full decks back together?”

“Fair point”, Jenny mutters, then eyes Morgan’s cards with suspicion. “Those are actual proper decks, right? Not marked or anything?”

“I do have some integrity”, Morgan retorts dryly.

“Good to know; just checking.”

Claire laughs up her sleeve, amused by the whole interaction. She really didn’t expect Morgan to include Jenny in the let’s-pretend-med-school-doesn’t-exist-for-once evening they planned during the bus ride from Morgan’s apartment, where they stopped off after leaving Chick ‘n’ Bread so Morgan could get clothes for tomorrow and a few games, but she’s really not complaining about it. This has the potential to be a lot of fun, especially since board or card games seem to be the only activity between friends that Morgan is fully comfortable with for some reason.

To be perfectly honest, though, Claire can easily guess why Morgan did include Jenny of her own volition: because if it was just the two of them, it would have meant an opening for Claire to mention Jack or her family or really anything Morgan talked about the previous week again. But now… Now, she’s a hundred percent sure it can’t happen, under any circumstances, until they parts ways with Jenny for the night.

(She has no way to know that Claire was never planning on bringing it up in the first place.)

Two minutes later, they’re set, with Claire and Morgan both settled on opposite ends of the couch, Jenny sitting on a chair she brought from the kitchen, and all of them looking extremely focused as they take in the cards in their hands.

Time to win as many rounds as possible.

Claire and Morgan’s rivalry flares up immediately, as it does whenever any kind of opportunity for a competition is laid out in front of them. It gets, of course, even more intense after Claire wins the first round and grins triumphantly at Morgan who glowers at her in return; eventually, when they begin bickering to try to distract each other, Jenny raises her eyebrows (again) and lets out a low whistle that startles them both.

“Some things must really be… interesting with the two of you”, she muses aloud.

“Huh?” Claire mutters, confused.

“Nothing. Please, carry on, this is extremely entertaining. Slightly disturbing, but entertaining.”

Truth be told, after the first few rounds, Jenny spent more time watching them than really focusing on trying to win, except for the rounds during which the cards in her hand gave her a truly obvious way to do so. Claire doesn’t quite get why, but she has enough competition with Morgan not to worry about it.

About an hour in, Ellen, another one of their roommates, gets roped into pairing up with Jenny after making the giant mistake of coming out of her bedroom to figure out the source of all the noise in the living room. So from then on, the competition switches from Claire and Morgan against each other to the both of them against Jenny and Ellen, and it turns out to be even more intense somehow. Because when they team up, they are a force to be reckoned with – and they know it.

“I should have never done that”, Jenny laments after her team loses five rounds in a row. “I thought you two would chill a little if you stopped playing against each other, but damn. I was sorely mistaken. Ellen, I’m so sorry for dragging you into this; I don’t think we’re going to win much against these two.”

“Does this mean you concede defeat?” Morgan asks, not bothering to hide her gloating.

“Not quite yet – I will not quit until our next miraculous win –, but woah. You two sure are something else.”

Morgan gloats some more. “Thanks. We’ll take the compliment.”

Claire gives her a light, chastising slap on the arm. It’s easy for her to do – they’re sitting right next to each other now, both of them having gradually shifted to the middle of the couch since they started teaming up against Jenny and Ellen, and Morgan is so close at this point that Claire barely has to move her hand to reach her.

“Take it down a notch, will you? I don’t want them to be put off from ever playing with us, or even just me, again!”

“Yes, listen to your g— game partner. She has some mercy left in her, at least”, Jenny mutters.

“If you focused more on the game than on complaining—”

“Morgan”, Claire insists, too close to laughter to manage to be stern.

“Fine. Fine”, Morgan grumbles. “But more playing, less talking.”

Jenny narrows her eyes at her. “Get ready to lose, this time.”

That leaves Morgan utterly unbothered. “You wish.”

“We will win”, Jenny says, resolute.

(They don’t win.)

In fact, it takes eight games during almost half an hour more for Jenny and Ellen to finally snatch victory from the jaws of defeat once, thanks to a bit of luck with their draw and a lot of careful decisions, and they high five with enthusiasm while Claire looks at them with a smile on her lips.

“I take it this is where we stop?”

“Yup, yup, yup, a thousand times yup. I’ve had my fill for one day”, Jenny confirms. “It’s going to take a while to recover from so much loss now. Roomies, out.”

Morgan holds up a finger as Jenny gets up from her chair.

“Before you go, I have the clothes you lent me last week. Thank you, by the way.”

She holds out a plastic bag with folded clothes inside, which Jenny takes with a hum of approval.

“You’re quite welcome. Should I expect my closet to be raided again in the future?”

“Hopefully not”, Morgan answers sincerely.

“Okay, good to know. Well, on this note, I have a comfy bed waiting for me now, so I’ll see myself out. You two have a good night.”

Jenny waves at them one last time before locking herself in her room, something Ellen already did with a sigh of relief a minute ago, and Claire and Morgan end up alone in the living room for the first time since they arrived.

“Go ahead”, Claire says, vaguely gesturing to her room with one hand. “I’ll go get the air mattress; I folded it and put it back on its shelf during the week, so we’ll have to inflate it again.”

“That’s not a problem”, Morgan replies as she gathers her cards and sorts them into decks again, then puts them back into her backpack. “Do you want to play some more tonight, or…?”

Claire glances at the watch on her wrist. “No, I think it’d be smarter if we went to bed. It’s already quite late.”

She doesn’t fall asleep easily. And, if the tossing and turning is any indication, Morgan doesn’t either.

Claire’s not entirely sure why she can’t seem to relax and close her eyes, but it doesn’t matter much in the end – whatever the reason may be, she finds herself still awake an hour after they switched off the lights. Awake and, for lack of a better thing to do, trying to recall the names of all the bones in the foot to pass the time.

“Talus, calcaneus, navicular, cuboid”, she begins to list in her head, mouthing the words along. “Medial, intermediate and lateral cuneiform; then we find the metatarsals, then the phalanges – proximal, medial and distal.”

She’s so focused on trying to recreate the pictures from her anatomy textbook in her head that she realizes a little too late that Morgan’s tossing and turning keeps worsening, both in frequency and in intensity. Late enough that, by the time she realizes it’s beginning to sound a lot more like thrashing than anything else, Morgan is already jolting awake, gasping for breath.

The words are out of her mouth before her brain is even fully caught up. “You’re safe. It was just a nightmare”, Claire says soothingly. “Morgan, it’s alright, we’re at my apartment. You’re safe.”

She reaches for her bedside lamp and presses on the switch, blinking a few times as her eyes adapt to the soft glow illuminating the room now. Morgan is sitting on the air mattress, head in her hands as she tries to catch her breath, and Claire waits until she seems to be fully aware of her surroundings to speak again.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, her voice no louder than a whisper.

Morgan shakes her head no. When she looks up, her eyes are still a little bit wild, but she seems to have calmed down a fair bit already.

“I’m sorry for waking you.”

Claire smiles softly. “Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t asleep.” She lets a beat pass, then: “Do you often get bothered by nightmares like that?”

Morgan shrugs and looks away. “Sometimes. They were less frequent these last few months, but it got worse again since… you know. Last week.”

Claire’s smile morphs into a sympathetic face. “I can imagine. Is there anything that helps?”

“No. Well…” Morgan looks down at her hands, fiddling absent-mindedly with the covers; when she speaks again, it’s so low Claire barely hears her. “Your blanket kind of does.”

Claire forgets how to breathe for a second. Doesn’t remember for a second more as she stares at Morgan, looking so unguarded and so goddamn young for once as she curls in on herself on the air mattress.

“Why didn’t you take it with you tonight?” Claire asks when she finds her voice again.

Morgan shrugs again instead of answering. It doesn’t matter; it dawns on Claire quickly enough.

“Hey”, she calls gently. “Hey. Look at me.” She waits until Morgan does to continue. “I’m not going to take it from you if you bring it back. I meant it when I said you can keep it while you need it – and that includes if you need it here. Okay?”

“Okay”, Morgan croaks. Her voice sounds like it’s coming out of her throat through a lump, that she does her best to swallow down afterwards.

“Do you want to try to go back to sleep, or would you rather we keep the lights on for a little while?”

“First option. I won’t keep you up more than I already did.”

Claire half-snorts with laughter. “I was going through anatomy diagrams in my head because I couldn’t fall asleep. I can assure you I’d rather talk to you for a little while.”

“It could have been worse. It could have been organic chemistry.”

Glad to see that Morgan has gotten her sense of humor back at least, Claire fully chuckles this time. “I would never. The frustration would keep me up for sure, which is the exact opposite of what I’m aiming for. That damn subject haunts my dreams enough, thank you very much.”

“Dreams, or nightmares?”

There’s a hidden question in there, and one that Claire doesn’t miss. “I don’t know. They’d deserve to be called nightmares, I guess, but compared to some other ones I get… not so much.”

“About your mom?”

Claire sits up. If they’re going to talk about this properly, she’s not going to do it in her current weird half-lying position. So she takes the comforter with her and wraps it around her, then pushes her back against the wall to get comfortable. The downside is that, now, Morgan has to crane her head up a great deal to look at her from the air mattress.

“You know what?” Claire decides. She opens her right arm to the side, comforter in her hand so it extends along the wall, and tilts her head to indicate the space she just created. “Come here.”

She doesn’t think twice about it. She doesn’t think twice about it until uncertainty paints itself on Morgan’s face, and she suddenly realizes that she may have put her in an incredibly awkward situation.

“Or just come sit next to me instead of down there so it’s easier for us both”, she offers. “You don’t have to actually…” She doesn’t know how to phrase ‘be in my arms’ in a way that doesn’t sound awfully intimate, so she opts not to finish her sentence. “It’s up to you. Whatever you’re most comfortable with.”

Morgan seems to hesitate, and it makes something else worm its way into Claire’s mind.

“Wait. Are you… okay with me— I mean— After last Friday, I kind of assumed you were okay with—”

She doesn’t know how best to phrase what she wants to say, even though it’s clear in her mind. She’s been… touching Morgan all week. Nothing extravagant – grabbing her arm once or twice, pressing their shoulders together instead of avoiding it at all costs when they were sitting a little too close, little things like that… But she doesn’t actually know if Morgan is okay with it, or if she’s just been tolerating it for her sake. Because Claire hasn’t been able to keep from reaching out since Morgan stopped flinching away; she gets that constant urge to reassure herself that yes, Morgan is really fine, she’s really here, but she’ll stop at once if she’s asked to.

Except now, after seeing Morgan’s hesitation, she needs to know if she’s actually been overstepping all week. Even though she can’t seem to figure out how to ask that damn question.

Thankfully, Morgan seems to read between the lines just fine.

“I’ve always had… trouble with physical contact”, she says slowly. “Ever since I was a kid. I guess it didn’t help how cold my family was with me. Then Jack… Jack made it better for a time. Until he ended up making it a lot worse.”

“I’ll stop”, Claire promises.

“No.” Morgan takes a deep breath and climbs up on the bed, sitting down in the place Claire first offered: in front of her extended arm, where she can wrap the comforter tight around them both. “No”, she repeats, firmer this time. “If I don’t learn to be comfortable with it from you…”

She doesn’t finish her sentence, but Claire hears its end anyway. I’ll never be comfortable with touch from anyone else again.

“Okay”, Claire whispers, curling her arm around Morgan’s shoulder and pulling her closer the way she originally intended to. “But if it ever gets too much, I want you to tell me immediately.”

Morgan nods, then lets her head fall to rest on Claire’s shoulder. “Deal.”

“Good. Now, to answer your question… I’ve had nightmares for a long time. They eased up when I got here, away from my mom, but they never left. They’re not often about her, though. Most of the time, they’re random.”

This week, half of them were about Morgan getting hurt, but she doesn’t need to know that. All it’d bring her would be guilt.

“And you manage to deal with them?”

“Honestly, med school exhausts me so much that they rarely wake me up these days. It helps. I also don’t really have a choice, so there’s that.”

“I’m familiar with the issue”, Morgan mutters.

“I’m going to ask you something I have a feeling you’re not going to appreciate too much”, Claire warns her. “Have you ever thought of going to see a therapist?”

Morgan tenses up. “Have you?” she retorts, scoffing.

“Actually, yes”, Claire says evenly. “Once. It’s not miraculous, but it does help.”

“And you never went back.”

Morgan says it like a challenge, not like a question. It makes Claire sigh.

“I need to live with four roommates and work a part-time job to make ends meet every month – and that’s with the help of a massive student loan I don’t even want to think about right now. I don’t exactly have money to spend on regular appointments with a therapist”, she points out.

“I hadn’t considered that”, Morgan admits.

“Will you at least think about it? It never hurts to try, you know.”

Morgan huffs. “I make no promises. I don’t like to talk about my life; even less with strangers.”

“Sometimes it’s easier”, Claire says. “With strangers, I mean. There are far less consequences to deal with.”

Morgan gets her head back up from her shoulder and gives her a sidelong glance.

“Consequences like you knowing all the ways I’m fucked up now and using it to psychoanalyze me at lunch in the middle of an argument?”

“You’re not fucked up, Morgan. You’ve been hurt and used and it obviously has consequences, but what happened to you doesn’t define you. Or, at least, it doesn’t have to.”

Morgan doesn’t reply right away. But when she finally does, she sounds somewhere between defeated and exhausted.

“How do you do it? How do you go through what you did, grow up with a mom like yours, and still end up being an optimistic person willing to help people, to put your trust in them? How did it not turn you bitter, or cold, or at the very least wary?”

Claire sighs softly. “My mom used to tell me that I’d regret it sooner or later. That people would walk all over me, that I was an idiot for being willing to lend a hand or give the benefit of the doubt. And I guess it’ll happen, maybe several times; I guess some people will take advantage of it. But if I close myself off and refuse to believe there’s good in the world, then… then I end up just like her. And that’s the last thing I want to see myself become.”

“If it helps, you’re the exact opposite of her”, Morgan says honestly. “The exact opposite of me, too. I was never a very trusting person, but now…”

There’s something about sitting next to Claire on this bed that seems to make her open up, for some reason. That makes her walls disappear, leaving in its wake nothing but truth and honesty, even if just for a little while – even if, most probably, they won’t acknowledge it happened tomorrow. Because Claire isn’t fooled: she can tell that conversations like this one will stay in the secret of her bedroom for a long time.

(That’s still a first step, though.)

“Yet you trust me”, Claire murmurs.

“You make it hard not to trust you, among other things”, Morgan half-grumbles. “It’s quite frustrating, really.”

That puts a smile on Claire’s face. She bites her lip to rein it in before Morgan can see it and glare at her for it, then squeezes Morgan’s shoulder to pull her a little tighter against her for a second.

“I’ll let you pretend you don’t like it”, she says conspiratorially.

“I don’t”, Morgan retorts without missing a beat.

But her tone is not convincing in the least.

They end up talking for a long time. About growing up with terrible parents, about loneliness, about their childhood; about things that, Claire is ready to bet, neither of them has told to anyone else before. (She knows she hasn’t.)

They don’t talk about Jack, though. It’s clear he’s a sore subject that Morgan isn’t ready to broach again yet, and Claire can fully respect that.

Then, eventually, as they both begin to yawn more and more due to the late hour, the conversation also starts to dwindle.

They still don’t move. Morgan put her head on Claire’s shoulder again a while ago and they twisted their bodies as they kept talking so they could get a little more comfortable; the direct result is that they’ve basically been snuggling for a while at this point, but neither of them really acknowledges it.

It feels… right. Somehow, that’s the only way Claire manages to describe having Morgan safe in her arms. Right.

It really is incredible, just how much she grew to care for her in such a short amount of time. She’s not even sure exactly how much that is and she’s in no hurry to analyze it any further, but she knows it’s a lot. Also a lot more than she ever expected to care for anyone in med school, truth be told.

They’re so similar and so different at the same time. It’s a strange balance; but it does make them fit together very well. And it makes Claire feel pulled to her, in a way that she never really experienced before.

Sighing softly, she lets her own head rest on top of Morgan’s as her eyelids grow heavy with sleep.

They should go back to a mattress each. They should. But she doesn’t want to move; doesn’t want to let go of Morgan. Not yet. Not when she doesn’t know how long it’ll be until they get to do this again – just exist, together, with no pressure or expectations or walls around their feelings.

She dozes off for a moment. She couldn’t tell how long exactly; but when she wakes up, Morgan is heavy in her arms. Asleep, as Claire was too a second before.

“This is becoming a habit”, she whispers amusedly, mostly to herself since she knows Morgan can’t and won’t hear her.

Not that she minds. Except maybe for the part where she’ll have to relinquish her bed again, since she’d rather not fall from it in the middle of the night – as she’s sure she would, if she had the really terrible idea of trying to make them both lie next to each other on such a tiny mattress. Besides, she’s pretty sure that this would, understandably, be way too much closeness for Morgan to wake up to.

Even though Morgan is currently fast asleep in her arms, with her head tucked in the crook of her neck.

Claire wonders, briefly, if she makes Morgan feel safe. If that’s why they keep finding themselves in this exact situation, two weeks in a row now – if knowing that she’s right there is enough for Morgan to relax and trust that nothing will happen to her. Because, in the exact opposite way, she has a feeling that Morgan tends to have a hard time falling asleep around people as a general rule.

She hopes it’s at least part of the reason why. All she wants is for Morgan to feel safe and cared for around her.

Careful not to wake her, Claire pushes a few strands of hair away from her face with feather-light fingers. She has no idea how Morgan is not half-smothered by now, with so much of it over her nose and mouth, but she doubts it’s too comfortable in the long run.

Not that they’ll be like this for much longer, since they both really need some proper sleep that they will never get in this position, but still. Her hand itches to move Morgan’s hair away, and she doesn’t see why she should bother to fight the urge.

(She’s too tired to wonder why she’d gladly keep running her fingers through it for no good reason afterwards.)

“Okay. Time to move”, she murmurs to give herself some motivation.

She lets herself fall slowly backwards, bringing Morgan down with her, then turns them to the side and carefully extracts her arm from underneath her. She does so slowly, making sure she doesn’t inadvertently wake Morgan up due to jerky or too quick movements.

Just like the previous week, she manages just fine.

Unlike the previous week, though, a soft whine escapes Morgan’s lips at the loss of contact. Quickly followed by a hand reaching out blindly for her wrist.

Claire almost painfully feels her heart miss a beat. Then become erratic in her chest.

Morgan is still asleep. And yet, unconsciously, she’s trying to keep her close.

“I’m here”, she breathes out. “I’m still here. I’m not going far, I promise. I just need to sleep too, and you kind of kidnapped my bed again.”

She twists her wrist so she can squeeze Morgan’s hand once, softly, then reluctantly lets go and finally slides onto the air mattress where she’ll spend the night this time again.

It takes a while for her heart to slow down enough to let her fall asleep.

Chapter Text

“You stayed, this time”, Claire whispers when she wakes up to the sight of Morgan still in her room the next morning.

“Why do you keep letting me steal your bed?” is the reply she gets.

“Because you seem to make it a habit to fall asleep in my arms?” Claire teases, not bothering to hold back the soft smile that she directs at Morgan. Sleep still hovers at the edge of her consciousness, trying to lure her back in, and it’s making her less filtered, more tender than usual.

Morgan looks away the second she hears the question, obviously embarrassed even though she has no reason to be; a light blush also appears to be coloring her cheeks, but Claire isn’t entirely sure she’s not imagining it.

“You should just wake me up”, Morgan mumbles.

Claire yawns and stretches her arms over her head, giving herself a few seconds to figure out what to say. In the end, she settles for deflecting: it’s too early for her to be able to analyze what would be too much for Morgan and what wouldn’t if she were to reply honestly. “This seemed like a better option. Anyway, breakfast?”

“Sure.”

Morgan leaves right before lunch, after a few hours of mostly silent studying. There would be no good reason for her to stay any longer anyway since Claire’s shift at the supermarket starts at 2pm, and she also seemed to want to avoid sitting through an entire meal with Jenny. (Given that Jenny shouts a loud “bye, part-time roomie” right before the apartment’s door closes behind Morgan, Claire can fully understand why.)

The weekend flies by after that, Claire dividing her time between her job as a cashier and non-stop studying so she doesn’t fall behind on any class right as the projects start to pile up again, and it feels like no time has passed at all when Monday morning rolls around. Way too little time, even, to Claire’s liking, because she’s no closer to figuring out how to say the five ridiculous words “I have a date tonight” to Morgan.

Truth be told, she wasn’t even thinking about it anymore until Jared jolted her back to reality by sending her a text with the restaurant’s address the previous evening. Not that the issue is a lack of excitement about this date, because she really is looking forward to it to some extent… but she did push it so far back in her mind after realizing her inability to talk to Morgan about it that it stayed there during the entire weekend.

So here they are, on the day it’s happening, and Claire still delays the inevitable until the very end of their lunch break.

“Hey, Morgan, um”, she begins haltingly. “I can’t go to Chick ‘n’ Bread tonight.”

The look on Morgan’s face at that is nothing but surprise. Claire gets why; she never bailed even just once before.

“Is there something wrong?” Morgan asks a second later, surprise morphing into concern.

“I— No. No, nothing’s wrong. It’s just that I, um, I… I have a date?” Claire squeaks, her voice coming out as a question rather than the confident statement she was hopelessly aiming for.

Morgan’s entire body seems to freeze. “Oh.”

There are a few moments of awkward and tense silence that Claire doesn’t know how to break after that, and it’s Morgan who ends up speaking again.

“You could have warned me sooner.”

Her clipped tone makes Claire flinch. She’s not used to hearing it directed at her anymore, even though it was an everyday occurrence at the beginning of the year, and it does nothing to lessen the feeling of dread that’s been lodged in her stomach all morning.

“I know”, she sighs. “Jared asked me out on Thursday, and—”

Morgan’s scoff cuts her off. “Jared? You could do so much better.”

Claire feels a wave of protectiveness flare up inside her at that. She’s not even sure why exactly, but something about Morgan’s reaction rubs her the wrong way. “He’s a good guy. Nice, too.”

“If you say so.”

“You know what?” Claire says, more annoyed than worried now. “I’ve been trying to tell you about that date since Friday morning but I failed every time – and I couldn’t figure out why it was so hard, but now I guess I was anxious about it because a part of me knew you’d react like that. And I hate that this part of me was right. You’re my friend, Morgan; you’re supposed to be happy for me – or supportive at least –, not… whatever this is. I’m sorry I’m only telling you now, but this date is not about you. Why are you trying to ruin it for me? Do you have a very specific problem with Jared that I’m not aware of?”

Morgan looks at her for a long time before she finally answers, sounding more defeated than angry or hostile even though it’s clear she’s trying to hide her true feelings. “No. Have a great time with him if that’s what you really want, then. I don’t care.”

She leaves before she’s even finished saying the last word, her resolute steps echoing down the corridor, and Claire is left rooted to the spot with the terrible feeling that she may have just ruined weeks of progress regarding her friendship with Morgan in the span of a minute at most.

For a reason that she doesn’t even understand.

Morgan sits alone in class this afternoon for the first time in a week.

And Claire knows that she was right to make her boundaries clear, knows that Morgan totally overreacted and this issue has to run deeper than being warned a little too late about a change of plans, but it doesn’t change how the end result makes her feel.

Because the empty seat at her right sure does make her want to cry.

The restaurant Jared chose is closer to Claire’s apartment than it is to the school. It’s a complete coincidence – he doesn’t know her address –, but it does mean that she has just enough time to go back to her apartment to change out of the jeans she wore during the day and into a nice dress that she handpicked from her closet the previous evening. Just enough time to redo her makeup as well, and then off to the restaurant she goes.

Jared is already there by the door when she arrives, even though she’s a few minutes early.

“Hi”, he breathes out when he sees her. He’s obviously struggling to keep his eyes up instead of letting them roam, and Claire does her best not to smirk at his reaction. It’s exactly what she was aiming for.

And she hasn’t even removed her jacket yet.

“Hi”, she replies. “Have you been here long?”

“Just a few minutes. Shall we?” he asks, motioning to the door.

“Yeah.”

Jared opens the door for her, perfect in the role of the gentleman, and they enter the semi-crowded restaurant that Claire can immediately classify as rather posh after just one glance at the tables and the overall setting.

“If the food tastes as good as this place looks, it’s going to be delicious”, she notes.

“Trust me, it is”, Jared replies.

He gives his name to the waiter coming up to meet them and they’re immediately led to a table for two in an alcove near the back of the restaurant, where they sit down in front of each other as soon as the waiter turns on his heel to go fetch them the menu.

Claire immediately realizes that she has no idea what to say to him. Usually, when she’s sitting at a table for two these days, it’s at Chick ‘n’ Bread with Morgan, and they know each other so well by now that conversation flows fluidly between them without requiring conscious thought most of the time. (Besides, even at the start, filling out the silence was never a problem they faced – since they were never out of things to argue about.) And when they did stop talking, or when they do stop talking these days, it’s always because there is a natural lapse in conversation.

This, though? This is different. This isn’t a comfortable silence that feels natural – this is a silence that is almost begging not exist. A silence between two people expecting it to be broken, even though neither of them seems to know how to do that.

She never has, or had, those with Morgan.

(… Until today, at least.)

“So, how was your day?” she eventually asks.

“Long”, Jared answers in a single exhale that half-sounds like a sigh of relief. “Yours?”

“Exhausting”, she says honestly. She’s doing her best to get Morgan’s reaction out of her mind so she can be present in the moment, but it’s the only thing she’s been able to think about all afternoon and it’s wearing her out.

“We really got buried under a giant pile of homework last week, didn’t we?” Jared replies with a grimace of sympathy.

Claire nods, glad to see the conversation switch to med school so they will at least have things to talk about without needing to go through any additional awkward silences. “And the group projects haven’t even started yet. I have no idea how we’ll survive once we need to deal with scheduling issues on top of everything else.”

“Tell me about it”, Jared sighs. “But hey, speaking of which – do you plan on pairing up with Morgan again this semester? Because I wouldn’t mind working with Shaun some more.”

The waiter comes to give them the menus at this exact moment, saving Claire from having to answer for a few seconds. A day ago, she would have said yes with no hesitation, but now… Now, she doesn’t know if that can happen anymore. Because— How long will Morgan keep her at arm’s length? And why was she even mad enough to ignore Claire during the entire afternoon in the first place?

After a few hours of torturing herself with these two questions, Claire ended up theorizing that Morgan may have trouble with the idea of sharing her with someone else now that they’ve grown so close – especially since it’s something Morgan hasn’t really experienced before in her life. And she understands it on some level, because if their roles were reversed she’s pretty sure she’d feel weird about learning that Morgan was going on a date out of the blue too, but knowing that is unfortunately not helping Claire figure out how to work things out any better.

“I… don’t know”, she finally answers. “Hopefully, yes, but we had a bit of a fight today and I don’t know how that’ll affect us in the future.”

“Oh. What happened?” Jared asks. “If it’s not too personal, of course; I don’t want to overstep.”

“It’s… It’s rather stupid”, Claire sighs. “I don’t even understand why she reacted that strongly. It’s just… We usually meet up at a café-restaurant after the end of our classes – we started doing that for Pr Melendez’ project at the beginning of the year and we never stopped – but I didn’t tell her about our date until earlier today, and she didn’t take it too well.”

Jared gives her an odd look. “I hadn’t realized you two had gotten so close.”

“She’s…” Despite the circumstances, Claire can’t help but smile a little. “She’s really great once you get to know her. I know our friendship keeps surprising people because of how much we disliked each other at the beginning of the year, but… Yeah. We’ve grown quite close.” She takes a deep breath, then adds: “But anyway, I don’t think a date is the best moment for me to talk about being on the outs with my friend.”

Jared smiles at her. “Fair enough. What do you want to talk about, then?”

“Tell me more about you”, Claire decides.

And so he does.

The issue, though, is that Claire keeps comparing him to Morgan, even when she doesn’t mean to. But really, who can blame her considering the circumstances? Because even if they hadn’t fought earlier today, the fact is that any other Monday she’d be at Chick ‘n’ Bread sitting in front of Morgan in a comfortable atmosphere instead of at this restaurant in front of Jared who is obviously very nervous about their date, and the parallels just exist whether she wants to consciously analyze them or not.

So he talks about visiting his parents during spring break, and Claire thinks about Morgan being alone in her apartment because her family was never anything but shitty to her.

His laugh comes out a little strained due to the stress after she makes a witty remark, and Claire can’t help but remember the last time Morgan threw a quip right back at her in a similar situation instead.

It just… happens. The entire time they sit there.

The fact that Claire can’t help but wonder if Morgan went to Chick ‘n’ Bread alone tonight doesn’t help either. She just… can’t stop thinking about her, no matter how hard she tries. She lets it show as little as she can, because she refuses to be a terrible date to someone with whom she’s otherwise having a genuinely nice time, but her brain seems to be stuck on bringing everything back to Morgan.

This is so not how she thought her evening was going to go.

Aside from the ever-looming presence of Morgan in her mind, though, the date ends up being quite great: the food is delicious as promised, Jared turns out to be good company once he relaxes a little and stops being so self-conscious, and that also helps the conversation become a lot less stilted and a lot more natural as time goes on. So by the time they leave the restaurant half an hour before she needs to be at Shaun’s, Claire is quite glad she agreed to this date.

And yet, she still can’t see things going any further than that with him.

If he didn’t have any feelings for her, as it’s obvious he does, she might have considered it. She knows from experience that making out is great for stress relief – she had a boyfriend in her last year of high school for this sole purpose, after all – and Jared is handsome and nice and she could imagine herself in a very casual relationship with him, but she also knows it wouldn’t be fair to him when she can already tell they’re looking for two very different levels of commitment to each other at the moment.

She’s not going to put him through that. And for both their sakes, she’s not going to let him get his hopes up any longer either.

“I had a great time tonight”, she says honestly once they reach the bus stop.

“But?” he asks with a wobbly smile that tells Claire he already knows where this is going.

“But I’d only set you up to get your heart broken eventually if I told you we could go on more dates in the future. And I won’t do that to you.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Friends?” Claire offers.

“Friends”, Jared agrees. “I mean, it might take a week or two for me to nurse my broken heart”, he adds in a joking manner although it’s clear he kind of means it, “but yeah. I’d like to be your friend at least.”

Claire spots her bus rounding the corner and steps forward to signal to the driver that it’s the line she’s waiting for.

“See you tomorrow at school?”

“Sure thing”, Jared replies. “Bye, Claire.”

She smiles at him before turning around and getting on the bus, and then she does her best to empty her mind before arriving at Shaun’s apartment.

Half an hour after making it back to her place, Claire ends up knocking on Jenny’s bedroom door. If she doesn’t talk about Morgan’s reaction with someone before going to sleep, she knows she’s going to toss and turn all night – because while she’s made sense of it, kind of, she still needs to rant about it out loud if she hopes to feel a little less antsy anytime soon.

And the one person who has already listened to her ramble about Morgan a lot since the beginning of the year? Is none other than Jenny.

“It’s Claire. Can I come in?”

“Sure thing”, comes the answer from the other side of the door.

So Claire walks in, ready to start talking within the next microsecond, but she stops herself when she realizes how busy Jenny looks. She’s sitting on her bed, with a book opened next to her and her fingers flying over the keyboard of the laptop in her lap, and she doesn’t so much as glance up at Claire who keeps standing awkwardly near the door.

“I can come back if you’re too busy”, Claire offers.

“Nah”, Jenny replies easily. “I need to finish this before I lose my train of thought, but I can multitask and listen to you at the same time. What’s up?”

Claire sighs and runs a hand through her hair to push it back. “Something happened with Morgan. And I’m having trouble processing it on my own.”

“About time something happened.” Jenny snorts with laughter, her eyes moving from the book to the screen every few seconds. “You know, as your self-appointed confidant, I gotta say I’m a little wounded I didn’t get to hear about your crush on Morgan before you two finally went on a official date.” She chuckles some more, but Claire barely hears it because her entire brain has come to a screeching halt. “Not that it wasn’t painfully obvious, but still.”

“Wh— What?” Claire somehow manages to choke out.

“Oh, come on, don’t play coy”, Jenny replies, still not looking up. “Not with me. I saw you change into that fancy dress earlier.”

A lot of thoughts flash through Claire’s mind at the same time.

I had a date with Jared, not Morgan.

Jenny has lost her mind.

I’ve had a mentally exhausting day, but apparently it’s not done getting worse yet.

I don’t have a crush on Morgan.

… Do I have a crush on Morgan?

The unbroken silence seems to alert Jenny that something is wrong, because suddenly her eyes are up and widening in what would have been an almost comical manner if Claire wasn’t completely freaking out at the moment and in no state to assess that.

“Oh”, Jenny breathes out. “Oh. Shit, you hadn’t figured it out yet? Oops, wow— Um, I should really learn to keep my mouth shut so I don’t— Wait, how could you go on a date with her and not realize—”

“I had a date with Jared”, Claire says slowly. She feels numb and frozen, but this one fact does manage to make it past her lips by some miracle.

“Who’s Jared? Wait, no, that doesn’t matter right now. Priorities, Jenny, focus. Should we do this again? You tell me why you came to me in the first place, and I try not to put my foot in my mouth this time?”

But Claire is trapped in a spiral of thoughts, and it’s not like she can easily push them away or just go back to them later. Because now that she’s seriously considering what Jenny just said… many many things seem to make a hell of a lot of sense all of a sudden.

How did she not put the pieces together earlier? How did she miss so many signs?

How did she not realize that she has a crush on Morgan?

It’s so obvious, now that it’s been laid out in front of her. So obvious that her mind is filling with images after images no matter how hard she tries to make it stop, and suddenly she’s picturing herself taking Morgan’s hand and not letting it go. A second later, she’s brought back to last Friday and she remembers how right it felt to have Morgan wrapped up in her arms, and she feels stupid stupid stupid for not realizing why that is. Or why she felt like running her fingers through Morgan’s hair even when there seemed to be no good reason for that idea to cross her mind.

She imagines Morgan looking up at her that night, and she pictures herself leaning down to meet her lips in the softest possible kiss. (Her heart beats faster just at the thought.)

She thinks back to how often she mentally compared Jared to Morgan tonight during her date, and it suddenly becomes glaringly obvious to her why that kept happening over and over again. (Her subconscious is less oblivious than her, apparently.)

Then it hits her that a crush, instead of only friendly feelings, also explains why she would feel weird if she were to learn about Morgan going on a date of her own sometime soon. (Because, um, duh?!)

And finally, she identifies the tension that fills the space between them whenever they argue or tease each other about something – and damn, seriously, how in the world did she not figure this out sooner?! It’s not like she ended up making out with her very first girlfriend a few years ago due to that very same tension or anything…

… Except that’s exactly how she became sure once and for all that yup, she’s definitely into girls too.

She’s such an idiot.

An idiot.

An oblivious idiot with a crush on her probably straight best friend like the ridiculous stereotype that she is, and— and oh. Oh no. This is bad.

“Claire?” Jenny says urgently, pushing her laptop to the side and patting the spot in front of her on the bed with her foot. “Please sit down, you look like you’re about to pass out.”

Claire does kind of feel like she’s about to pass out too – if only because after the day she’s had, her latest realization sure is the last thing she needed to be hit with right now.

“You know, having a moment of gay panic when you’ve already established you’re bisexual several years ago sounds a bit overkill to me”, Jenny tries to joke, although it falls flat and her voice betrays more worry than anything else.

“No, no, no, you don’t understand”, Claire mumbles, surprised to hear herself talking at all. “I can’t do that to her. I can’t…”

“Do what?” Jenny asks, confused. “What am I missing here? What’s going on?”

But Claire can’t answer that, because it’d require revealing some things about Morgan that it’s absolutely not her place to share. She can’t answer and she won’t be able to talk about it with anyone, but the thing is… the last person Morgan trusted and felt comfortable with also turned out to have feelings for her. And Claire, having been told the story of her relationship with Jack, knows that this situation only led to two awful things for Morgan: one, she felt obligated to pretend to reciprocate his feelings, and two, she ended up being abused by him starting soon after that.

So there’s no way in hell Claire is ever saying a word about the feelings she just realized she has to Morgan. It would be incredibly selfish of her to do that – not to mention that Morgan deserves to have someone in her life who will be there for her without ever expecting anything other than friendship in return.

Which means that she’ll just have to swallow it all down and deal with that ridiculous (read: giant, now that it’s hit her square in the heart) crush on her own.

“Morgan needs a friend. Not… Not this”, Claire breathes out, shaking her head rather frantically.

Jenny gives her a dubious look. “The heart eyes you were throwing at each other the other day say otherwise.”

“No, that’s not… She’s never had a real friend before, okay? She doesn’t… She doesn’t always know what to say, or how to act, or— There are no heart eyes the way you mean it.”

“Mh-kay. I’ll pretend to buy that if it helps you calm down”, Jenny acquiesces for Claire’s sake. “On another note – I’m really sorry for, you know, calling you out on having a crush before you were ready to hear it. I thought you wanted to keep it a secret… not that you were still oblivious to it.”

“How did you even—?!”

“Well… the fact that you told me you two spent Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve together with the most ridiculously smitten smile on your face during spring break was kind of a dead giveaway.”

Claire gapes for a good few seconds. “Spring break?! We weren’t even that close at that point!”

“Maybe not, but it looks like you’ve been falling for her for a while”, Jenny replies softly. “Even if you didn’t see it happening.”

“Uh-huh”, Claire says dumbly. “Apparently. It’s— I— I’m… Yeah. I’m going to need to process this.”

More like she’s going to need to figure out a way to lock that inconvenient crush far, far away, because otherwise she doubts her heartbeat is going to slow down anytime soon. And because her mind really needs to stop picturing on a loop things she absolutely shouldn’t be picturing in the first place.

This is a disaster.

Morgan might not even talk to her tomorrow and for who knows how long after that, and yet she’s here wondering how soft her lips might be or how well their hands might slot together if they were to intertwine their fingers.

She needs to get a grip. Like, somewhere within the next twelve hours.

Mercifully, Jenny interrupts her thoughts for a moment by reminding her of why she came to her room in the first place.

“So… What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Right”, Claire mutters. “Well, I told Morgan I was bailing on her today and it led to her pointedly ignoring me during the entire afternoon; and I had a feeling it was going to keep me up all night if I didn’t ramble about it out loud for a little while… but now I’m one hundred percent sure I’m not going to sleep much anyway, so it’s not like it matters anymore.”

Jenny grimaces. “Sorry about that. Again.”

“It’s fine”, Claire sighs, hands rubbing her temples. “I suppose I was bound to figure it out eventually.”

“Emphasis on eventually”, Jenny teases gently.

“Shut up”, Claire grumbles, glaring at her. “I feel like such an idiot now that I’m thinking back to the last few months. I can’t believe how many things I overlooked and brushed aside repeatedly.”

“Maybe you didn’t want to see them”, Jenny suggests.

“Maybe”, Claire repeats. She can’t deny it makes sense, though, because her crush on Morgan makes everything so much more complicated – so maybe there was a part of her that kept pushing it down, so she wouldn’t have to deal with its consequences. “Anyway, I’m going to go attempt to study, give up, and then lose sleep over that untimely realization now.”

Jenny pokes Claire’s thigh with her foot. “Don’t torture yourself too much. And I’m here for you if you want to talk about it more in the coming days, okay?”

“Thanks, Jen”, Claire says with a half-smile.

But she already knows it’s not going to happen, because she’s not so much freaking out about the realization that she has a crush that is almost certainly unrequited – she mainly wants to make sure that it won’t affect her friendship with Morgan, since that would be a disaster. And it’s not a topic she can freely discuss with Jenny, considering how deeply tied with Morgan’s personal life the issue is.

So really, the only thing she can do now is grit her teeth, steel herself, and just push through it on her own.

When Claire arrives in the amphitheater the next morning, bleary-eyed from the less than three hours of sleep she did manage to get by some miracle, she heads to her usual seat on autopilot, without paying much attention to her surroundings. Honestly, she doesn’t even look up from the ground until she reaches the front row…

… And freezes at the sight of Morgan a few steps away from her, on what had become her usual seat last week.

Oh. Oh no.

She was prepared to deal with distance and hostility. She’d readied herself for that all night.

She was not prepared for the barely-there smile of apology on Morgan’s face.

And she was even less prepared to deal with Morgan inches away from her during the entire morning, less than twelve hours after Jenny involuntarily got her to confront the reality of her (now glaringly obvious) crush.

“You’re here”, Claire uselessly states, after blinking a few times to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating because of the exhaustion.

“I needed some time to clear my head. I’m sorry”, Morgan says sincerely, although quietly enough that the only other person who could possibly hear her in the noisy amphitheater is Shaun. “I was annoyed you warned me so late about the change of plans – I still am – but I was making you pay for… for more than that, if I’m being honest. I took out on you an issue that was just mine and that wasn’t fair of me.”

It takes a moment for Claire to process that. She feels like her head is buzzing and foggy at the same time, she’s probably gaping like an idiot but she can’t help it, and she’s also way too sleep deprived to compute the fact that this day is shaping up to be the exact opposite of what she expected it to.

Earlier this year, Morgan would have been too proud to backtrack after her initial reaction. She would have kept her distance, Claire would have watched her from afar, and they would have stayed stubbornly at odds until one of them eventually broke and started the fight that’d end with them working things out. It’s what Claire spent half the night bracing herself for.

This, though… This is a level of emotional maturity that she really hadn’t expected Morgan to have reached yet. And she’s glad about it, she really is, but now she’s going to have to adjust accordingly and that is another problem entirely.

(This week was so not the right moment to become aware of that damn crush.)

“Apology accepted”, she murmurs as she goes to sit down between Shaun and Morgan.

She doesn’t trust herself to say anything more. Truth be told, she doesn’t even trust herself to be around Morgan and not give away her newly-discovered feelings one way or another at the moment, yet she has no choice but to suck it up and deal with it now. Even if she’s completely, wholly, and entirely unprepared.

“You look tired”, Morgan comments after a few beats.

“Yeah. I didn’t sleep much”, Claire admits.

She can feel Morgan’s eyes drilling into the side of her head, but she keeps staring stubbornly at the sheets of paper she’s taken out of her bag instead of acknowledging her stare. Her mind is already in shambles – she doesn’t need to make it worse by looking back at Morgan who’s right next to her, and ridiculously beautiful with her hair pinned back so it doesn’t fall in front of her face while she takes notes, and probably trying to assess if her reaction the previous day is what made Claire lose sleep last night, and—

Yeah.

No.

She has enough to deal with right now as it is. She doesn’t need to willingly make it worse.

“So. How was your date?”

Claire’s fork halts its course an inch or two above the plate in front of her.

Of course Morgan would bring it up – of course she would –, but… did she really have to do it here, at lunch, right in front of Alex who is no doubt going to tease her about it for at least a few days now? When that’s the last thing she needs?

Also, for all Morgan apologized for brushing her off during an entire afternoon, she clearly still holds some resentment and doesn’t quite try to hide it. Because she couldn’t have said the word ‘date’ with more bitterness and disdain even if she’d tried.

“It was…” Claire begins to answer, but nothing else comes out of her mouth after those two words. Because suddenly, all her mind can remember from her date are some things she cannot say – namely, how she kept comparing Jared to Morgan as it was happening, and how not even that was enough for her to figure out what was really going on.

She averts her eyes as her cheeks quickly heat up, thoughts of how different that date might have been – how right it might have felt – if it had been with Morgan rather than Jared filling her mind again after she spent the entire night trying to keep them at bay. She’s all too aware that she’s doing a terrible job dealing with her emotions at the moment – or concealing them for that matter –, but it’s the best she can muster for the time being.

“It was fine”, she finally mumbles, unable to align more than three words to answer Morgan’s question.

“You had a date?” Alex asks. The confusion mixed in with the curiosity puzzles Claire for a second, but she doesn’t have enough energy or mental space to try to make sense of it right now.

“Yeah. Yesterday, with Jared. Can we talk about something else?”

Alex keeps looking at her strangely for a moment, but then he just shrugs. “Of course.”

Morgan doesn’t say anything; instead, she looks down at her plate and starts aggressively cutting a piece of meat with a scowl on her face. She seems angry for some reason that Claire can’t quite place, but her eyes are also shining more than usual as if she were fighting back tears and—

And that’s when Claire catches herself staring at Morgan instead of resuming eating. Because apparently, she has very little control over her own reactions today.

She pushes back her chair and stands up before her mind even processes her decision to do so. “I’m… I’m not very hungry today”, she says haltingly. “So I think I’m just going to go study a little before the classes resume. I’ll see you all later, okay?”

She is bolting out of the cafeteria before her friends even get a chance to reply.

She can’t deal with this. She can’t deal with this.

Morgan finds her in the lab where they attend their pharmaceutics class, ten minutes before it’s set to start. Claire went there directly after she left the cafeteria, and she’s been staring blankly at the book opened in front of her for she doesn’t even know how long since then.

“You’re acting weird”, Morgan says bluntly.

Claire doesn’t mean to laugh, but it escapes her all the same. “You’re one to talk.”

“I already apologized”, Morgan grumbles. “What more do you want?”

“Nothing”, Claire says honestly. “This isn’t…” Well, this has everything to do with you, actually, just not in the way you think it does. “I’m not mad at you or anything. I was confused, and hurt, and I really thought you were going to shut me out for days and I’m really glad you didn’t, but that’s all.”

“Then why exactly are you hiding here? You’ve barely looked at me all morning!”

Because it turns out I have feelings for you and it means that every time I look at you today, all I can think about is how ridiculously gorgeous you are and how much my hands twitch with the urge to reach out and hold yours. And it’s slowly killing me.

(And it’s not like she wasn’t aware of Morgan’s beauty before – she’s been living with that fact somewhere at the back of her mind ever since it hit her on Christmas Eve, after all –, but… but up until yesterday, it didn’t cause her heart to constrict in her chest the way it does now.)

(Or maybe it did, to a degree, and she was simply not paying attention?

Incredible how much a simple realization can change someone’s perceptions.)

Claire shakes her head and leans forward, letting her face fall into her hands and her elbows land on the bench in front of her. “I think I need a break from existing”, she says honestly. “There are too many things I need to handle at once and I’m not dealing with it well.”

There’s a distinct moment of hesitation on Morgan’s end, that Claire doesn’t need to look up to perceive because she can sense it well enough, and then Morgan finally sits down next to her with a small sigh. When she speaks, her words are slow and measured, as if she was trying them on her tongue for the first time.

“You can talk to me about it. If it helps.”

Claire turns her head in her hands to look at her with her eyes still half-closed. “Are you sure about that?” she mutters, the memory of Morgan storming away just a day ago still incredibly fresh in her mind. The question escapes her before she’s thought it through – because really, given what it is she’s losing sleep over, it’s not like she could talk about it with her anyway.

“I remember warning you I’m terrible at this”, Morgan replies quietly. “Our… friendship is very much uncharted territory for me. I’m going to screw up – a lot. Why you’re willing to put up with it is still beyond me, but you should know by now that pushing you away is what I always try to do when I have no idea how to deal with something new.”

“Has it ever worked?” Claire asks dryly.

“No, but you usually call me out on it immediately and—”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t exactly give me a chance to—”

“So you are mad at me”, Morgan huffs.

“No!” Claire exclaims. “But I am frustrated – with you, and with myself for different reasons.” Reasons like getting a crush on you when it’s the last thing the both of us need. “I just— Look, I get why you didn’t take it well.” Morgan’s eyes widen a fraction as she sucks in a breath, and it causes Claire to shake her head more fondly than she really meant to. “How long will it take until you finally accept that I’m not going anywhere? That what we have, the— The friendship that we’ve built, it’s not going to disappear! Dating or no dating. And no matter how many new people come into my life.”

It’s so hard, finding a way to express what she feels without having to resort to lies. Nothing is going to change? Wrong; it already has, for her at least. Whether I’m dating someone or not? Terrible way to put it when she now knows she can’t picture herself dating anyone other than Morgan for the foreseeable future.

She’s going to have to be so careful with her words from now on. The last thing she wants is to give her crush away and destroy however little faith in friendship she’s managed to restore in Morgan so far.

“Are you sitting with Shaun or with me today?”

The question is so out of place, so unrelated to what she just said, that it takes Claire an awfully long time to process it. But really, she should have expected the change of subject – Morgan can only take so much talk about feelings at once, after all. And she’s so tense, her voice sounding both challenging and defeated while her whole demeanor is a subtle mix of relief and caution somehow, that it’s honestly a miracle she hasn’t physically removed herself from the situation at this point.

“Shaun told me yesterday that he’d like to try to sit with Carly again, so I’m guessing you”, Claire answers with what she hopes is a nonchalant shrug.

One more class during which she’ll have to control the utter mess that is her heart at the moment is not too high on her list of priorities, but helping out Shaun with his own crush happens to be higher – so she’ll just have to suck it up.

“Great. Then let’s move before everyone else arrives”, Morgan says, picking up her bag as she gets up and crosses the room. Claire had purposely sat down at the back when she first arrived, unwilling to make a definitive choice between her two possible seats just yet – just in case she ended up realizing she truly was too much of a mess to sit with Morgan today.

“‘Coming”, she mutters absent-mindedly as she closes the book she’d been staring at, but not reading, for way too long before Morgan showed up.

Well. Today is sure proving to be quite a challenge, albeit not the one she had steeled herself for.

She has no idea how she’s going to make it through the rest of the week.

Chapter Text

Claire survives the rest of the week.

Things stay weird between them for days, though. Nothing is wrong, really, but nothing is right either. Their conversations are stilted when they used to be effortless, it feels like there’s a rift between them that they can’t seem to bridge for some reason, and overall weird really is the best way to describe most of their interactions after their talk on Tuesday.

All the while, Claire slowly learns to deal with her newfound feelings, helped in a twisted way by the fact that Morgan’s walls are partially back up. (It is, after all, easier to remember to keep her distance – whether emotionally or physically – when she can kind of feel it being asked of her, no matter how much this situation also pains her.) The fact that Morgan keeps making snide remarks about Jared and how he took Claire out on a date also plays a role; Claire elects to ignore them so she doesn’t end up having a full-blown argument with Morgan over it, but it does grate on her nerves a fair amount.

“No regrets about being here instead of at whatever fancy restaurant you went to yesterday?” Morgan asked when they arrived at Chick ‘n’ Bread on Tuesday.

Claire rolled her eyes and didn’t answer.

(To be fair, she was a little too busy trying to shush the part of her mind wishing she was on a date this time too.)

“Are you sure you’d rather not pair up with Jared?” Morgan sneered when the professors started to give instructions for group projects.

On that occasion, Claire gave her an exasperated glare and sighed back a tired “would you just stop already?”, but it only made Morgan shrug and look away with a scowl on her face.

(In the end, Claire pairs up with Morgan on three groups projects out of six, leaving a willing Shaun to work with Jared on two of them and with Carly for the pharmaceutics one. The fourth project is for a class that Morgan doesn’t attend – only Shaun and Claire do –, the fifth is due to the professor deciding to draw names to create random groups, and the sixth one does actually include partnering up with Morgan – but also with Shaun, since the professors required them to work in groups of three.

Professors, plural. Because Pr Lim and Pr Melendez decided to experiment with the usual formats and test a new idea for the first time in the school’s history: a joint project involving their two subjects, mandatory for the students attending both classes while the others are given a separate assignment instead.

Claire kind of feels like that makes their year group guinea pigs… but it’s not like they have much of a say in the matter, now do they?)

It’s early Sunday evening when Claire’s phone chimes to notify her of a text from the owners of New Beginnings. The update on her mom often comes around that time, as she’s noticed over the months, so she doesn’t think much about it at first; she just opens the text absent-mindedly, her eyes trained on a few complex sentences about embryonic development she’s having a hard time making sense of, and she waits until she’s done with the whole page to switch her focus to the actual contents of said text.

As soon as she does, though, she feels her blood freeze in her veins.

Because it’s not an ‘everything’s okay, your mom is doing fine and improving’ update like she’d gotten used to getting over the course of the last few months. It’s a ‘your mom is kind of starting to relapse because a fellow resident she’d become close to was deemed well enough to leave early this week, and she’s not dealing with her absence well at all’ update.

And the thing is, Claire cares. Even after everything her mom put her through for eighteen years, even though she wishes she could just shrug it off – she still cares about her; about how she’s doing, about whether she’s getting better or not. So, that text… it hits her, in a way. It makes her heart beat painfully and her hands start to shake.

The fact that the words ‘your mom’ and ‘relapse’ in the same sentence bring back some rather unpleasant – and numerous – memories doesn’t help in the least.

She throws her phone on her bed, where she won’t be able to grab it back without getting up, and leans back in her chair with her eyes closed. Damn it. Her week had been hard enough already, this news was really the last thing she needed.

“Wonderful”, she mutters to herself. “That’s just wonderful. Perfect timing, mom, as always. Thanks a lot.”

She spends the rest of the evening studying with the phantom of Breeze’s face dancing in front of her eyes, no matter how hard she tries to push it away.

They’re at Chick ‘n’ Bread trying to brainstorm ideas for their microbiology project when Morgan makes one comment too many, and Claire finally snaps.

“Would you focus?” Morgan huffs with palpable annoyance after having to repeat a question twice for Claire to finally process it. “I know last Monday had to be more enjoyable than this, but there’s a time and a place for daydreaming and as far as I’m concerned, our limited time together to work on this assignment doesn’t exactly qualify!”

“What?” Claire replies at first, confused, but then her brain catches up to her ears and her last shreds of self-control fly out the window. “Oh, you have to be— If your goal was to make me want to be anywhere but here right now, congratulations, you just succeeded!” she bites out angrily, the words leaving her mouth before she’s had a chance to hold them back. (Though she’s not sure she would have in any case, because she’s really had enough of Morgan’s snide remarks.)

Actually, she’s had enough of absolutely everything, right this second – this just happens to be the last straw. Her feelings for Morgan, the news about Breeze, the amount of assignments they have to deal with at the same time… It’s too much. It’s too much and at least some of her pent-up frustration will have to get out, one way or another.

So before she gets a chance to lash out and say things she knows she’d immediately regret, Claire pushes her chair back and stands up, then marches to the front door without a look back.

She needs some fresh air to clear her mind.

When she comes back over ten minutes later, after deciding to walk around the block at a brisk pace to help calm herself down a little, she finds Morgan exactly where she left her. The only difference is that rather than looking at her with annoyance, Morgan now looks at her with concern instead.

“Do you feel better?”

Claire doesn’t bother to lie. “Not really, no.”

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“I don’t know what you have against Jared”, Claire deflects more than she answers, “but leave me out of it from now on.”

Morgan waves the comment away. “Yeah, I got that part from your storming off, but it’s also not what I’m talking about. What’s really going on?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Claire retorts weakly. “I’m fine.”

She doesn’t want to talk to Morgan about what’s going on in her life right now. Their relationship has become way too complicated in the span of a week for her to willingly—

“Give me my phone back”, she nearly yelps when Morgan grabs it from where she’d set it down on the table.

“Why?” Morgan challenges. “Because I’m going to find answers in it?”

“No, because it’s mine and I want it back!”

“Tough luck.”

“You can’t unlock it anyway”, Claire argues.

Morgan raises a challenging eyebrow and hovers a finger over the screen. “Do you know how many times I’ve seen you type your passcode over the course of the last few months?”

Cold sweat begins to run down Claire’s spine. The two most recent conversation threads on her phone are the one with the owners of New Beginnings, featuring the still unanswered message telling her about Breeze starting to relapse, and – even more worryingly – her ongoing one with Jenny. Jenny who teased her about her crush on Morgan several times last week, after Claire sent her messages complaining about how hard she found it to focus during classes now.

This is not good. Not good at all.

No matter what angle she uses to look at her current predicament, she’s cornered.

“Fine”, she hisses. “I’ll tell you, but give me my phone back first.”

Morgan’s eyes move from Claire’s face to the device in her hand, then back to Claire again. “So I would find something in it.”

Yes, she would. That the whole damn problem.

And Claire can’t deal with it any longer right now.

Fueled by a mix of desperation and annoyance that melt together in her mind, causing her hands to shake and her glare to harden, she bites out her next words without holding back. “That’s not the point, and back off. My private life is none of your business.”

Morgan’s small intake of breath and the flash of hurt in her eyes instantly get her to cool down, though. Because that’s really not what she was aiming for.

“Right”, Morgan mutters, her grasp on the phone loosening before she puts it back down on the table, almost like she can’t bear to hold it anymore. “I guess that what you meant and what I understood when you told me ‘friendship is supposed to work both ways’ a few months ago aren’t the same thing after all.”

“No, that’s not— I didn’t mean—” Claire sighs, fidgeting with her hands without really noticing. “Morgan, the last time I told you something about my private life, you bailed on me without a warning. You can’t fault me for being cautious now.”

“Okay, fair point”, Morgan concedes. “But something’s been eating at you lately, and I don’t want you to keep pushing it down instead of talking about it because that’s clearly not working for you. What’s going on, Claire? It’s not like you to be so distracted and distant. You seem… on edge. Constantly.”

Although the irony of the situation is not lost on her, Claire is suddenly glad that she has more than just her crush on Morgan to deal with at the moment. Because even though she’s been preoccupied for a week because of that specifically, she can now blame her distant behavior on her mom’s issues without lying – if she just omits to say when she got the text from the owners of New Beginnings, of course.

“My mom is kind of relapsing”, she says in a single exhale, so low that it’s a miracle Morgan even hears her over the loud background music of Chick ‘n’ Bread.

But Morgan obviously does hear her, because her immediate reaction is to blink in surprise and open her mouth in a nearly soundless “oh”.

“Yeah”, Claire sighs, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. “So that’s why I’m so distracted today, not because I’m… daydreaming, or whatever.”

Morgan nods, seemingly to herself, then shifts forward to put her elbows on the table and rest her chin over the interlocked fingers of her hands. “So. What do you plan to do about it?”

“What do you mean, ‘what do I plan to do about it’? I’ve seen my mom relapse way too many times already – I’m certainly not going to get involved the one time I don’t have to deal with it!”

“You’re just going to let it eat away at you until it interferes with your studies to the point of maybe failing a class, then? And here I thought that’s what you were trying to avoid by driving your mom to New Beginnings in the first place”, Morgan says in a very casual manner, which riles Claire up exactly the way it was supposed to.

“I drove her there so I could get her out of my life at last”, she retorts, glaring.

“Is that why you asked to get regular updates on her too?”

Cornered, Claire glares even harder, but Morgan just smiles in that absolutely infuriating way she’s mastered and continues pushing.

“So, since pretending you don’t care is obviously not working out too great for you, I’ll just ask again: what are you going to do? What could help bring you some peace of mind?”

Instead of responding to that annoying question that she doesn’t want to think about too hard, Claire huffs and looks away. “Would you let this go?”

“Would you stop avoiding what you’ll have to face at some point anyway?” Morgan shoots right back.

“You’re exasperating”, Claire says through gritted teeth.

“I know. I’ve been told it’s one of my best qualities”, Morgan replies, grinning fully now.

Claire shakes her head and rolls her eyes, but she still chuckles despite herself. “Only you would consider that a quality.”

“Just one of the things that make me stand out”, Morgan confirms unabashedly.

They both fall quiet then, the air between them filled with nothing but the obnoxiously loud background music of the place as they stare at each other with their walls down for the first time in a week, and Claire almost physically feels the pieces of them that had been scattered last Monday slot into place again. It makes a weight that she didn’t even realize was burdening her lift from her shoulders.

She missed this. She missed Morgan; she missed them being them. Terribly.

(So maybe distance wasn’t such a good idea after all.

And maybe, hopefully, they can fix whatever is preventing them from being fully okay again tonight.)

“How bad is your mom’s relapse?” Morgan quietly asks before Claire can continue much further down that train of thought.

“I have no idea. They were vague about it, but even if they’d given me details… I’ve spent enough years with my mom to know that she can be a great actress when she wants to hide something.”

“Is that why you’re worrying so much? Because you don’t know exactly what’s going on with her?”

Claire considers that hypothesis for a moment. Since she was mostly focused on ignoring the news about her mom so far, she hadn’t tried to analyze the situation yet, so Morgan is forcing her hand right now.

“It’s possible”, she finally says. She debates with herself for a moment more before revealing what she just realized freaks her out the most, if she’s being honest: “I don’t… I don’t trust my mom not to fuck up so royally at some point that they’ll decide to just throw her out. Because that’d be a real disaster for me.”

“They wouldn’t do that”, Morgan tries to reassure her.

“Yeah, well, you don’t know my mom”, Claire immediately retorts.

Morgan nods absent-mindedly, then sits back in her chair. “So the only thing that could possibly help you is knowing your mom’s true state of mind? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I guess”, Claire answers, confused as to where this is going.

“And the only way you’ll consider the information reliable is if you assess it yourself?”

“Morgan, no”, Claire says firmly as soon as it dawns on her what’s being suggested here. “I will not go see my mom. That’s out of the question.”

“Then I guess you will let it eat away at you until it interferes with your studies.”

“I’m not going”, Claire insists stubbornly, ignoring Morgan’s very valid point.

Morgan who keeps insisting as well, obviously.

“Why?”

“B— Because”, Claire splutters, “because I don’t want to see her and I’m not— She’s not—”

“You’re worried you’ll feel even worse after facing her if it really is bad”, Morgan suddenly realizes.

Instead of commenting on that, Claire levels her with her best ‘you think?!’ stare. Of course she’s going to be a mess if she loses a full day to drive four hours and back only to have Breeze scream at her – or worse –, bringing back every feeling and memory she’s been able to put aside for the first time in her life since she took her mom to New Beginnings. Of. Course. Who wouldn’t be?

“Would you—” Morgan seems very self-conscious all of a sudden, puzzling Claire for a second until— “Would it help if you weren’t alone?”

Oh. Oh. Now that’s a good question – she’s never really had anyone by her side to face her mom’s abuse before. She never let anyone in enough for that.

This is so complicated, though. Not because she’s not sure having Morgan at her side would help – it undoubtedly would –, but because she’s not sure what state she’d reach New Beginnings in after four hours stuck in a car with Morgan, considering how painfully hard her heart is already thumping right now. What did she ever do to deserve being stuck in a situation like this in the first place?

“I wish I didn’t have to deal with this at all”, she says quietly, heaving a sigh as she blinks back the tears that are starting to gather in her eyes against her will.

“Sometimes we don’t exactly have a choice”, Morgan replies with far too much understanding in her voice. “So, what day works better for you? Saturday or Sunday?”

“I didn’t say—” Claire immediately retorts, but she cuts herself off mid-sentence.

Because Morgan is right, on all counts. The only way she’ll be able to stop having Breeze’s relapse mess with her ability to concentrate on her studies is if she figures out how bad it is on her own, and she will feel much more confident if Morgan comes with her to New Beginnings. So there’s really only one logical way forward.

“Saturday. You can come back to my place with me once we leave Shaun’s on Friday, that’ll be easier.”

They decided that very morning that Fridays would be the day they’d all work together on their joint anatomy/biochemistry group project from now on, with Claire and Morgan skipping their usual study session at Chick ‘n’ Bread so they’d all go back to Shaun’s for a good few hours, and this new arrangement makes Saturday the smartest answer to Morgan’s question for obvious reasons.

Claire isn’t sure how her heart is going to survive having Morgan at her place again, though, but that’s another problem entirely and she’ll just have to deal with it however she can.

“Perfect!” Morgan exclaims. “Can we go back to the major arteries in the human body now?”

“As long as you don’t make me want to walk out of here again, yes we can”, Claire answers, doing her best to switch her focus back to the notes she took during Pr Lim’s last two classes.

If she’s honest with herself, she does feel better now that she knows her next step in dealing with her mom’s relapse – as if having a plan helped her be haunted by it less. Besides, it also does help that she wasn’t the one to come up with it; because if she’d made the decision to go to New Beginnings on her own and things ended up going awry, she knows she would have blamed herself for it again and again, worsening her current state of mind that much more. But since it’s Morgan who took charge and almost made the choice for her? Well then – if it doesn’t go well, she’ll have someone else to resent for it; and that already helps her in advance. Because it won’t be her own fault they went there.

So really, Claire can’t think of a better way forward right now. All things considered, what she settled for is rather ideal.

(… As far as anything can be considered ideal in such a terrible situation, anyway.)

And it almost seems to good to be true, on a surface level; but deep down, Claire has a feeling that nothing about it is coincidental. That Morgan is fully aware of what just played out and still took the decision out of her hands on purpose, because she’d rather let Claire resent her for the failed attempt if it comes down to that than let Claire shoulder that burden on her own.

Even though there’s a real risk it might put a strain on their friendship for a while. Even when said friendship has already been on rocky ground for a full week now.

Morgan is still willing to suffer through that for her. To help her.

It’s kind of incredible.

And it only makes Claire love her that much more.

Wait. Love?

Oh, no. No. She’s so not analyzing that thought right now. It’s way too soon. Way too fast.

She’ll deal with it much, much later. Whenever everything calms down. Not now.

And yet, an unbridled part of her heart already knows it’s true.

(She just won’t be ready to listen to it for a while.)

The rest of that week goes way better than the last. Morgan quits making remarks about Jared altogether, having apparently gotten the message from Claire storming out of Chick ‘n’ Bread that they really weren’t welcome, and that gets things between them to steadily improve until they feel almost effortless again by the end of the week.

Less distracted by both her crush on Morgan, now that she’s used to dealing with it, and the news about her mom, after texting the owners of New Beginnings to warn them that she’ll be visiting with Morgan on Saturday, Claire does begin to notice something that completely flew over her head the previous week, though: just how hard Morgan is trying in class these days. She was always one of the most active students, on par with Claire and Shaun, answering the professors’ questions then asking some of her own, but her involvement seems to have reached new heights while Claire wasn’t paying attention and it feels fueled by some sort of desperation that puzzles Claire at first… until it doesn’t anymore.

Morgan is trying to regain some control over what’s happening to her. And that’s the only way she knows how.

Claire figured out weeks ago that Morgan always sought from teachers, then professors, the validation that she never got from her parents – because while, at home, she was overlooked no matter what she did, at school, she could earn praise if she put in enough effort. And that’s what Morgan is after, at the end of the day: to be recognized; to be seen. She wants to matter.

She wants to be seen so badly that she doesn’t care how many people she relegates to her shadow as she rises to achieve her goals, even; no matter how many toes she’s stepping on in the process, no matter how many people end up hating her for it, she simply doesn’t care. She’s willing to do whatever it takes – within reasonable limits, of course – to reach the top. And that’s why she had such a hard time dealing with Claire and Shaun challenging her, at the beginning of the year: because she couldn’t just shine over them like she was used to until then.

So it makes sense that, when her friendship with Claire became rocky and she lost her bearings a little, Morgan turned to the only thing that’s never failed her to regain some sense of stability in her life: she invested herself in her studies even more.

Claire had to bite her tongue not to comment on it, certain that Morgan wouldn’t appreciate having one of her biggest vulnerabilities laid out in front of her like that, but it does pain her to be reminded that Morgan completely lacks a support system outside of their friendship – background protectiveness of Alex voluntarily excluded, since Morgan refuses to let him in.

It sucks. A lot.

And it’s a saddening reminder that Morgan deserves so much better than the people she grew up with.

Friday evening is… something.

A something that starts during their last class of the day, pharmaceutics, where Shaun and Carly can’t seem to be able to stop giggling – well, Carly is the one doing most of the giggling – and talking and blushing over and over again as they work on the experiment the professor tasked the class with, seemingly oblivious to how absolutely not subtle they’re both being, and being overall as lovey-dovey with each other as they can possibly get in the middle of a classroom. Claire glances at them on a semi-regular basis, amused by their teenage behavior, and often smiling fondly as she wonders which one of them will muster the courage to ask the other one out first.

On the other hand—

“They’re nauseating”, Morgan mutters halfway through the class, looking over at them with a scowl on her face.

“They’re cute”, Claire counters. “They’re so obviously crushing on each other; it’s just a matter of time before they do something about it.”

What she gets as an answer from Morgan is a bitter scoff. “Like a crush ever leads to anything good.”

Claire sighs softly as she pushes her own hopeless crush down as far as it will go. She knows that Morgan is more than disillusioned when it comes to romantic relationships – with good reason –, but her terrible experience is thankfully not the norm and there’s a good chance Shaun and Carly will manage to be happy together.

“Sometimes people are lucky”, Claire says quietly.

“If you say so”, Morgan mumbles.

Then she looks away, and barely says another word until the end of the class.

She doesn’t speak much on the way to Shaun’s either. To be fair, the three of them all seem lost in their own little world, and they only shake themselves out of it once they’re seated around Shaun’s kitchen table and ready to discuss what angle to approach their project from.

It’s… strange. Mostly because while Claire is used to pairing up with the both of them, Shaun and Morgan have never really worked together before, so it’s a necessary adjustment for everyone as they try to figure out what their dynamic will be in a group of three. In the meantime, Morgan gets frustrated when Shaun jumps from idea to idea too randomly for anyone with no insight into his brain to follow, Shaun gets annoyed when Morgan wants to focus on an idea that isn’t the one he’d rather discuss, and Claire is already exhausted from her role as a mediator not even an hour in.

The tension in the room only increases, of course, when Lea comes back from her shift at Chick ‘n’ Bread and immediately inserts herself into the situation.

“So that’s where my two most dependable customers have disappeared tonight!” she exclaims as she walks into the room and finds them all there. “I never thought I’d see my favorite grump in my apartment”, she then tells Morgan with a grin, “but I guess there’s a first time for everything. New project or something?”

“New project”, Claire confirms.

“So should I expect this to be a regular occurrence?”

“Yes”, Shaun answers. “They will be here every Friday.”

Lea plops down on the last available chair next to Morgan before she comments on that. “Awh. I’m gonna miss you guys; my shift won’t be nearly as fun without you.”

“We were kind of in the middle of something”, Morgan remarks acidly, not-so-subtly pointing out the scattered sheets of paper on the table in front of them.

Lea snorts amusedly. “I can see that. But I get to sit down with you guys for the first time since you showed up at Chick ‘n’ Bread – a place you tried out following my advice to Claire, need I remind you? – because I’m not a waitress right now, so let me just savor the moment for a little while, alright?”

“As long as you do it in silence”, Morgan retorts.

“Have you ever known me to do anything in silence?” Lea asks, laughing.

“We really don’t have any time to waste, though”, Claire cuts in before Morgan ends up taking out the frustration that has built up with Shaun all evening on Lea.

“Fine. I’ll behave, then”, Lea declares dramatically.

And she does.

(Mostly.)

Enough so, at least, that Morgan only gets reasonably annoyed with her, and there’s not too much tension in the air when they leave Shaun’s apartment to go back to Claire’s place. Which is, really, the best case scenario anyone could have hoped for.

Claire still doesn’t miss the way Morgan relaxes the second they walk into her bedroom and shut the door behind them, though, watching as all tension bleeds from her shoulders and leaves her visibly exhausted instead; it’s a perfect mirror to what happens to her too, and Claire wonders if her room became a safe space for Morgan somewhere along the way. Because if so, she’s glad that it has: truth be told, that’s all she ever tried to turn her place into. A safe space.

They take turns in the bathroom, following what is starting to feel like a routine now that Morgan has slept over a few times, and they end up both back in Claire’s bedroom less than half an hour later with somewhat of an awkward silence between them. Because, while they both agreed they should go to bed immediately instead of studying a little longer since they’ll get up quite early the next day, well… this is usually when they’d end up talking for a little while. With bonus cuddling.

Except things have been weird between them for two weeks, even though they’re mostly back to normal, and Claire doesn’t exactly trust her heart not to beat out of her chest and betray her if Morgan ends up in her arms this time too, and—

“Are you worried about tomorrow?”

Pulled out of her thoughts, Claire blinks in surprise and refocuses her eyes to look at Morgan, who is sitting on the air mattress with her back against the frame of the bed in a way that doesn’t let Claire see her face.

Is she worried? That’s an almost hilarious understatement.

“Terrified would be slightly more accurate”, she chokes out.

That gets Morgan to turn her head to look at her in return. “Terrified? Why? What scares you so much?” she asks, cautiously curious.

“The last time I talked to my mom, well, you were there; she told me she was proud of me and I wound up in tears because of how out of character it was for her. The last time I saw her before that, it was when she showed up here and nearly ruined my first year of med school – which only didn’t happen thanks to your help. And the time before that? I was walking out of the apartment we’d been living in for a few years, with only my backpack and a suitcase, to go take the bus that’d drive me here, and she was screaming after me that I’d regret abandoning her. That I could never do anything good with my life, because I was nothing but a failure. And you know what? I was in tears that day too. Because it still hurt so much, even after eighteen years of being insulted countless times.”

Claire’s eyes start to burn as Morgan’s fill with both understanding and pain, yet she stubbornly refuses to look away. She’s been keeping everything at bay for almost a full week at this point, all the emotions that went through her after she received that cursed text, but now that she’s removed the lid she put on them, she finds that they’re all dying to get out at once.

And she trusts Morgan with them. With the truth.

(Morgan is the only person she trusts with the full truth.)

“I’m terrified because I have no idea what state I’ll find her in tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ll be praised, ignored, or spat on. And I don’t know how I’ll deal with any of these possibilities either – what state I’ll be in once I walk out of New Beginnings –, because I’m not nearly as prepared as I want to pretend I am. I just… I just wish she didn’t still have such an impact on me. I wish I could see an end to this, but it seems there isn’t any. No matter what I do, she still manages to hurt me one way or another, and I’m so tired of it.”

It takes a wet drop on her arm for Claire to realize that she’s fully crying now. She hadn’t been aware of how much she was holding back, but it does feel good to get it out instead of keeping it bottled up inside of her. It makes the idea of facing her mom just that little bit easier.

For a few more heartbeats, everything in the room stays still, and then Morgan turns her entire body around so she can climb on the bed and come sit next to Claire with hesitant gestures. She settles in close, their bodies almost touching but not quite, and Claire appreciates that she leaves the possibility of bridging the gap in her hands rather than initiating it herself.

But it’s been two weeks since the last time they were this close, two weeks of something being off between them, and Claire is just so damn tired of fighting her own mind. So what if she has a crush on Morgan? What if she wishes she could just kiss her right now, until the world fell silent for a little while? That’s her own damn problem to deal with; it doesn’t mean there needs to be physical distance between them where there wasn’t before.

She shouldn’t be behaving differently just because it turns out she has feelings for Morgan. They can be friends with the exact same dynamic they had before, as long as she stays fully self-aware.

So Claire lets her head fall against Morgan’s shoulder, because that’s exactly what she wants and what she needs to do. She needs the comfort of Morgan being there, a solid and unwavering presence at her side, while she’s not-so-slowly unraveling next to her.

“Is there anything I can do that’d help?” Morgan asks haltingly.

“You’re already here”, Claire murmurs in response. She knows she doesn’t need to elaborate any further, and Morgan will understand everything she means by that.

You’re here now. You’re coming with me tomorrow. You’re helping me every time I can’t deal with my mom on my own.

You’re already doing everything you possibly can.

She feels Morgan take a few deep breaths after that, and then there’s a tentative arm curling around her shoulder to pull her closer.

Claire fully sinks into the embrace as the tears continue falling. She understands, with sudden clarity, why Morgan felt safe enough to cry herself to sleep in her arms a few weeks ago; because she feels safe too, right now, and understood, and cared for, and shielded from the outside world, and so she decides to stop holding back. She buries her face into Morgan’s hair where it cascades down her neck, curls up against her, and lets someone look after her for once in her life rather than the other way around.

She’ll have to think about her mom. To deal with her. But that can wait until tomorrow.

For the time being, Claire doesn’t have to think about anything.

She can just let go.

(And if she’s the one who falls asleep in Morgan’s arms this time?

Well.

Is there any reason why it should be mentioned the next morning?)

Chapter Text

They park in front of the gates of New Beginnings just before noon. Claire drove the entire way; Morgan offered to relay her halfway through, but Claire preferred to stay behind the wheel while she felt comfortable doing so. She is, after all, not too sure how safe of a driver she may be for the trip back, depending on how much Breeze tries to mess with her for however long they’ll be here.

“Ready?” Morgan asks once they get out of the car.

“No”, Claire answers.

She presses on the intercom’s button anyway.

It doesn’t take long for someone to buzz them in and lead them to the sitting room where an oblivious Breeze was brought in earlier – Claire asked that she not be warned they’re coming –, and Claire has to resist the urge to turn around and walk right back out the entire time. If Morgan wasn’t there with her, lending her strength just from being at her side, she’s not entirely sure she wouldn’t have done just that.

They stop in front of a closed door, in front of which one of the owners – Sophia; Claire knows all their names by now – is waiting for them.

“She’s spent most of the morning screaming at us because we won’t let her out of here”, Sophia warns Claire, after they greet each other and Morgan introduces herself as the friend here for support.

“Here as in this room, or here as in this place as a whole?”

Sophia’s grimace is a mix of exhaustion and sympathy when she answers. “Both.”

“Of course”, Claire mutters. “Is she still taking her meds?”

“In theory, yes, but we’re not a medical facility – we don’t check whether our residents are lying to us or not.”

“So she’s probably not taking them.”

“Considering how unstable she’s been these last few days, I wouldn’t be surprised indeed”, Sophia agrees. “It’s a shame. She’d come so far until Mary left, but now she’s not cooperating at all anymore.”

Claire pinches the bridge of her nose, takes a deep breath, and steels herself for what’s to come.

“Great. Let’s just get this over with.”

“I’ll be in my office down the hall if you need anything”, Sophia says.

“One last question”, Claire suddenly blurts, before Sophia can even take a step. “My mom is stuck here until she’s actually doing well, right? There’s no way she’s getting out before that?”

“Unless you sign the papers to get her released, yes”, Sophia confirms. “We won’t let her leave, under any circumstances.”

That’s the reassurance Claire was looking for. “Thanks”, she breathes out.

After one last understanding smile, Sophia heads to her office and quickly disappears from view, leaving them alone so they can go and talk to Breeze privately. Claire watches her walk away and only puts her hand on the door handle once she’s alone with Morgan; but even then, she can’t bring herself to push it down just yet.

“Can you come in with me?” she pleads.

“Of course”, Morgan says softly. “I’m right here, whatever you need.”

Claire nods to herself, rests her forehead against the door for a second, then all but yanks it open so she can march inside and take a look at what state her mom is in. She barely hears Morgan close it behind them.

“Claire”, Breeze says, utter surprise coloring her voice as she gets up from the armchair she was sitting on with a book on her lap.

(That sight stuns Claire, even though she doesn’t let it show. She can’t remember ever seeing her mom reading something other than the newspaper of her own volition before.)

“Hi”, she replies through gritted teeth. That’s the most she can muster right now – especially as she watches her mom’s face morph into a scowl after the initial surprise wears off.

“So you remember I exist”, Breeze says, her voice suddenly scornful. “After the last few months, you could have fooled me. What makes you think I want to see you now? Why are you even here?”

“I was told you were relapsing and I wanted to see for myself how bad it is”, Claire answers, having to force the words past the lump in her throat as her hands begin to shake. It’s been months since she’s seen Breeze indeed, by far the longest she’s gone without interacting with her mom in her entire life, and she realizes now that in that time, she’s gotten used to not being screamed at or mocked or made to feel worthless more often than not. It makes having to deal with it once more that much harder, especially as it brings back memories and feelings she would have rather never dealt with again. “But you know what?” she adds, furious both at Breeze and at herself for even daring to hope this might go any differently. “I shouldn’t have bothered. I should have assumed the worst and be done with it – because you never fuck up halfway, do you?”

Breeze barks out a laugh at that, then begins to walk forwards.

“Don’t act like you care anyway”, she spits out. “You were all too happy to dump me here and forget I even exist.”

Claire doesn’t reply right away, too busy fighting the urge to step back as her mom attempts to get up in her face. She doesn’t want to be blamed for a choice Breeze made herself, especially considering the circumstances under which Claire even brought her to New Beginnings, but—

But it turns out Claire doesn’t need to figure out a good way to react after all. Because suddenly, Morgan is stepping between her and her mom, before the latter can get too close.

“Your daughter chose to lose an entire day of time she desperately needs to study just so she could come here and see you, even if it meant driving four hours and back”, Morgan says, speaking her mind with a calm and collected voice – although Claire can hear the cold rage simmering right underneath. “So I highly suggest you reconsider what you just said and apologize, because it’s quite obvious she does care – too much, even, if you ask me.”

Breeze scoffs. “And why are you here? Last I heard, you were the bane of Claire’s existence rather than her guard dog – not that any of this concerns you either way!”

“I’m here because relationships can grow and evolve for the better, if you’re only willing to put in the work”, Morgan retorts without missing a beat or letting Breeze throw her off balance. Her voice softens ever so slightly, though, when she adds: “Claire taught me that. And for her sake, I hope you learn the same lesson one day too.”

All air seems to leave Claire’s lungs at once then. Because on top of having her heart constrict tightly in her chest at the words, she suddenly realizes why Morgan’s current demeanor, with her tense shoulders and her unwavering voice, seems so eerily familiar: for the simple reason that she’s seen it once before – when Morgan was pointing a gun at Jack and telling him to leave her alone. And considering the way Morgan immediately stepped in front of her with such a protective stance, it also occurs to Claire in a flash that, if it ever came down to it, Morgan wouldn’t hesitate to point a gun at Breeze to scare her off either. The thought is both terrifying and reassuring at the same time, and Claire has no idea how to deal with it right now. Especially not here.

“I need to— I can’t— I have to go”, she mumbles, having a hard time coming up with a full and proper sentence while her thoughts are all jumbled up in her head.

She turns on her heel and walks back out the door, faintly aware of Breeze and Morgan continuing to exchange some more words behind her, then slides down to the floor against the wall after walking a few steps into the corridor. She’s not trusting her legs to carry her any farther.

Morgan joins her not even a minute later, sitting down next to her without a word at first. Claire hides her shaking hands between her knees, and they both pretend the action is in any way close to subtle.

“So. Is your mom always this charming?” Morgan eventually asks with dripping sarcasm, looking straight ahead in front of them rather than at Claire.

Claire who lets out a startled chuckle at the question, because of how absurd it is to her.

“On a scale of her bad days, ranked from less terrible to worst? We’re somewhere around a two.”

Morgan feels the need to ask for some clarification. “The worst being at ten?”

“She’s sober.” That much Claire is sure of, since there’s no alcohol allowed at New Beginnings. “And it’s just words. So yeah – something like a two out of ten. I’ve dealt with way, way worse.”

“But you’d forgotten how awful it makes you feel”, Morgan correctly guesses.

Claire doesn’t reply; she just nods, fully aware that Morgan understands her way too well right now and they don’t need any words to acknowledge that.

“Do you regret coming here?”

Morgan’s voice is hesitant when she asks that question – coming here was her idea, after all –, but Claire doesn’t even need to think about it to know the answer.

“No. You were right, I had to do this. I don’t trust anyone else when it comes to my mom – I’ve seen her fool too many people over the years.”

“So what now?”

Claire gives Morgan a hopeless look.

She has honestly no idea. Her instinct and any sense of self-preservation she has are telling her to walk away right this second, but the rational part of her brain is reminding her that she did not get what she came here for – she hasn’t done a proper assessment of her mom’s relapse. For all she told Breeze she should have just expected the worst, she doesn’t actually know that: how little she’s seen so far is, really, nothing more than what she should have braced herself for all along.

Words. Meant to hurt, sure, but words. Not actions. Not even some screaming.

She hasn’t learned anything.

“We’re leaving and I’m driving you back right now if that’s what you want”, Morgan says, her tone gentle. “But you need to be sure you won’t regret it by the time we’re halfway to San José.”

“No. We’re not leaving yet”, Claire decides, surprising herself with how firm her voice is. “I’m not done here.”

Morgan nods with the tiniest hint of a proud smile on her face.

“So. Are you going back inside alone or do you want me to come with you again?”

“Can’t you guess?”

“Alone?” Morgan asks, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

“Idiot”, Claire retorts with an exasperated chuckle, shaking her head and leaning sideways to shove Morgan’s shoulder with her own.

The look she gets as a response is awfully close to one that’d mean ‘only for you’, and it steals Claire’s breath away. It doesn’t last long, though, because Morgan quickly clears her throat and pushes herself up so she can stand in front of Claire with an extended hand.

“Whenever you’re ready.”

That would be never, Claire thinks, although she doesn’t say it out loud. It’s not like it matters anyway; her mind is made up, she will walk back inside to confront her mom for real this time. She just needs to work up enough courage first.

To be perfectly honest, it helps to know that Morgan will step in again if needed. The thought is the most comforting one she’s had in a while, and she clings to it like a lifeline – wild imagination making her also picture Breeze being held at gunpoint and told to step back be damned. It’s not like her mom wouldn’t deserve the fear that such a situation would bring anyway.

Claire takes the offered hand and lets Morgan pull her up. They end up standing in front of each other, neither of them letting go, and Claire is suddenly hit with the realization that this is only the second time Morgan has initiated any sort of physical contact between them for as long as they’ve known each other – and even then, the previous evening, Claire did lean her head first before Morgan wrapped an arm around her shoulders. So, technically, this extended hand is the true first time.

If she wasn’t so busy steeling herself for what’s to come with Breeze and methodically squashing the feelings she can feel rising in her heart as she’s holding Morgan’s hand, Claire would try to analyze why she feels like it’s so symbolic, but she’s really not in the right headspace for that right now.

“Ready”, she eventually says, once she feels like she’ll step towards the door and not away from it if she lets her feet move.

Morgan squeezes her hand once before letting go, and then she’s stepping back to let Claire lead the way.

So Claire does just that.

She finds her mom waiting for her inside the room, looking a lot more amenable than five minutes ago.

“You came back! I wasn’t sure you would”, Breeze says, apologetic. “Listen, I’m sorry for earlier—”

“Cut the crap and stop dreaming”, Claire hisses through her teeth, not bothering to let her finish spewing out some fake regrets. “You’re not fine, you’re not sorry, and I’m not checking you out of here. You can stop trying to coax me into it.”

That has the intended effect; Breeze’s demeanor immediately reverts back to what it was before.

“Then why did you even bother coming back?” she asks, mocking. “Is your little breakdown over yet?”

“I’m here because I have some things to say to you”, Claire retorts, surprising herself with the words coming out of her mouth even as she discovers the truth in them.

She didn’t drive all this way just to see her mom. She’s here because she has eighteen years’ worth of pent up hurt and frustration dying to get out, and she doesn’t need to bother holding back for once; she doesn’t have to worry about having to sleep in the streets or in a shelter if her mom throws her out this time, because they’re not living under the same roof anymore. Breeze has no power left over her.

So she can take back her own.

She can take back the power that her mom did her best to strip her of for all these years.

“Sit down”, Claire orders, “and do your best to walk me through how you went from apologizing to me and telling me you’re proud of me on Christmas to doing a perfect one-eighty as you always do. Make me understand why the person in front of me is being, well, you again.”

Breeze looks at her with an angry scowl, but she does cross her arms over her chest and sit down as instructed.

“It’s their fault”, she says, grouchy. “I was fine. I could have left with Mary and we wouldn’t be here.”

“Yes, you’re so clearly fine”, Claire scoffs. “Obviously.”

“I would’ve been if I hadn’t been left behind, stuck here”, Breeze insists. “But of course, they had to cut me off from my best friend here. So what did they expect? Huh? Can’t you understand how I feel?”

Claire explodes without a warning.

“You think I don’t know how it feels?!” she shouts, tears pricking her eyes. “Do you even have any idea how many friends I lost over the years because of you? Because you scared them away, or because they didn’t want to be associated from someone with a family like mine once they learned where I came from? Do you even care?! ”

It was apparently not something Breeze had ever considered before, as Claire rightly expected, because the questions stun her into complete silence. Or maybe the shock is due to the fact that Claire isn’t holding back for once, because that’s not something that’s ever happened before either.

“You don’t get to tell me how hard your life is here when you made mine hell for years ”, Claire continues, furious. “You don’t get to complain about something you brought on yourself, and you get to make me pay for it even less. It’s not my fault if the only thing you had going for you was one friend – nothing was ever my fault. I was a kid; I should’ve never been your goddamn punching bag.”

Breeze reacts at last. “It’s not my fault either”, she shouts back. “I didn’t choose to be bipolar, remember – or anything that comes with it!”

“And is it my fault you can’t even stick to taking your damn meds?!”

“But there’s no point ”, Breeze bites out. “Why go through so much trouble to sort out my life when nothing ever ends well anyway? It’s not worth the effort.”

“What a surprise; you never changed at all”, Claire notes, bitter. “You try for a while, and then you give up completely the moment it becomes a little too hard. You thought you were well enough to get out of this place when you can’t even deal with trying to be fine on your own? Really? You’re the same mess you’ve always been!”

“So what if I am?” Breeze retorts loudly, throwing her hands up besides her ears with a furious look. “It’s easier this way. And it doesn’t matter; it’s not like anyone even cares. So why should I bother? At least being a mess is something I’m familiar with. And it doesn’t require so much damn work!”

“I care”, Claire replies in a low voice that betrays just how angry she is too. “Or at least I did, because I’m done. I am done, mom. Right before I brought you here, I told you that I wanted you out of my life, and this time I truly mean it and I’m going to follow through with it. You chose to stay here so you could try to get better, but what a surprise! You can’t do that – not even here. Or not in the long run anyway. So I am done with you. You work on yourself or you don’t, I don’t care anymore, I’m walking out of here in a minute and that’s the last you’re ever going to see of me. No updates. No contacts. Nothing. Keep fucking up your own life if you like that so much, but I don’t want to know about it anymore – I don’t want anything to do with you anymore. Ever.”

No one speaks for a long moment after Claire’s outburst. She’s trying to find some perfect last words to leave her mom with; Morgan is still by the door behind her as she’s had no reason to intervene this time; and Breeze seems to have been stunned into silence again. Claire isn’t too surprised about it: for all the arguments she’s had with her mother over the years, she was always too aware of what boundaries not to cross if she didn’t want to compromise her future – or her safety, her life – to go as far as she just did. Except none of it matters anymore, because Breeze is stuck in New Beginnings and Claire is free. For the first time in her life, she can tell her mom to go to hell without even having to try to be nice about it.

And she can be unflinching as a bonus as she finally gets to stand up for herself, too; as she is, at last, able to step into her power instead of always pushing it away.

It kind of feels quietly life-changing.

“I may be your daughter, but that doesn’t mean anything to me anymore because I am not and I will never be anything like you”, she ultimately says, enunciating each word with much more force and poise than she thought she had in her. “I’m not the failure you always wanted me to be so you’d feel less alone in your misery; I’m the exact opposite, and you know what? I’m proud of who I am. I’m proud to be compassionate and good and hard-working, and I’m proud to say I’ll go after my hopes and dreams rather than waste my life away like you did, because I’m so much better than that. Because I’m so much better than you, mom.”

The weight of the moment, of what it means for her to say these words and mean them with every fiber in her body, wraps itself around Claire with an aura so pregnant she can almost sense it in the air, and she lets it slowly settle in the room as she revels in the renewed strength that she can now feel flowing through her veins. She’s aware that she’s finally made peace with her past and what never was, and so when she decides to add two final sentences before she turns the page and moves on once and for all, she says them with a voice that is almost gentle and quiet as a segue into the next chapter of her life.

“I’m going to be everything you never were, mom. And that’s the last thing I ever had to say to you.”

With one last look to a speechless Breeze, Claire turns around and walks right back out the door, following Morgan who stepped out the moment it became clear they were leaving; by the time she hears her name being called, they’re already halfway through the corridor, and she has no intention of answering whatsoever.

“I need to talk to Sophia before we leave”, she tells Morgan instead, “but I won’t be long. You can already head out – I’ll meet you in the car.”

She holds out the keys to Morgan who nods in response, and so they part ways in front of the door to Sophia’s office, where Claire barely has to knock once before she’s invited in. Their voices carry, she supposes.

“How did it go?” Sophia asks, sitting behind her desk with a sympathetic smile on her face.

“Terrible.”

“As bad as you expected?”

“I don’t even know what I expected exactly”, Claire sighs. “But it could have been worse, I guess – or maybe it would have been if I’d given her five more minutes to figure out how to best insult or demean me.” She shrugs, then continues: “It doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve put up with that for too many years, and I’ve decided it stops today. That’s why I didn’t leave right away, actually: to tell you that I don’t want any further updates on her from now on.”

Instead of replying, Sophia tenses up, and Claire only understands why a second later when Breeze’s voice resonates in the corridor right behind her.

“What updates?”

It’s Sophia who answers, prompted by a look from Claire.

“When your daughter brought you here, she asked us to give her regular updates on how you were doing. You were never supposed to know about it.”

“How regular?”

“Weekly.”

“How did you think I knew about your singing on Christmas Eve? About your relapse?” Claire asks in a voice devoid of emotion, still looking straight ahead rather than turning around to look at Breeze. Why it didn’t occur to her mom to follow her out the first time but it did now, Claire doesn’t know, but she can’t say she’s too happy about having to see her again before she leaves.

Breeze’s composure cracks for the first time that day. “I… I thought they were giving you news of big things as a courtesy. Not that you were keeping tabs on me.”

“I wanted to know if you were making progress – I told you, I cared about you getting better. Obviously more than you did”, Claire says, unable to keep a hint of bitterness from seeping into her voice this time.

Sophia attempts to cut in and mediate the situation then. “Maybe we should all—”

Claire doesn’t give her time to finish her sentence. “No. If there’s anything more you want to talk to me about, call me tonight, but I’m going to leave now. I really don’t want to drag this out any longer than necessary.” As Sophia begins to get up, she quickly adds: “You don’t have to come with me. I know the way out.”

They exchange a look until Claire is sure they’re both on the same page, then she walks back out of the office and brushes past Breeze without acknowledging her presence any further.

She doesn’t want to see the look on her mom’s face. The last image she has of her right now is from that room at the end of the corridor a few minutes ago, when Breeze looked shocked and Claire felt in control for the very first time in her life, and she doesn’t want to risk smearing it with anything – be it anger, uncertainty, or even remorse on Breeze’s end. She deserves to keep at least that one memory intact, after everything her mom has tainted for her over the years.

She knows she’s made the right choice when she hears the shouting begin.

“You’re not even going to look at me?” Breeze asks, furious all over again. “You’re going to walk out like I don’t even exist? Why did you even come here, really? To rub your freedom in my face?”

Claire resists the urge to sigh. This is a typical behavior for her mom: she doesn’t take responsibility for things she brought upon herself, ever; she’d rather lash out and accuse everyone around her instead.

“You’re going to regret it when everything falls apart for you!” Breeze keeps shouting as Claire continues to walk away. Small mercies, her mom doesn’t try to follow her at least. “What, you think your perfect little life with your perfect little girlfriend is going to last forever? It’s going to crumble like everything always does! You’ll see, when it does; you’ll see that I was right and you’ll regret telling me you don’t need me then!”

It takes everything in Claire not to freeze when Breeze refers to Morgan as her girlfriend, but she manages to keep going without letting her emotions show in any way by some miracle.

She’ll analyze that later. Right now, all she really wants is to leave, and she’s almost at the door that leads to the garden separating her from the front gates.

“What do you even have going for you outside of her?” Breeze screams some more, right as Claire gets there and puts her hand on the handle.

One final answer, she decides. One final answer and this is all over.

“What do you even have going for you outside of me?” she echoes, her calm voice a stark contrast to Breeze’s, though she still makes sure it’s loud enough to carry back to her.

She’s out the door a second later, without waiting to hear if her mom would somehow manage to find a new comeback to throw back at her.

Morgan is still outside of the car, leaning back against it, when Claire exits the gates of New Beginnings.

“Everything settled?”

“We’re good to go”, Claire answers.

She purposely chooses not to mention Breeze’s reappearance to Morgan, just because she fears bringing it up would make it feel more real. (It bothers her more than it objectively should that, in the end, she didn’t get to say her final words to her mom on her own terms.)

“Okay. I’m driving”, Morgan decides.

“Are you sure? I could—”

“I’m driving”, Morgan repeats, unyielding. “You need to unwind, not to focus on the road. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of your roommate’s car.”

The last sentence is said in a deadpan manner that is just very Morgan, and it gets Claire to start to relax already as it brings a small smile to her face. She hadn’t realized how tense her shoulders were until now.

“Fine”, she relents. “You’re driving. But that means I get to choose the radio station.”

Morgan gives her an amused look. “Deal.”

Before getting into the car, Claire turns around to look at the buildings of New Beginnings through the gates one last time. She’s feeling… something, she’s not sure what exactly, at the idea of leaving that place and never coming back to it again, and while her mom’s last taunts still ring dully in her ears, they’re not enough to rid her of the disappointment she hasn’t quite been able to move past yet. Was the part of her that, an hour ago, still hoped today had a chance of ending any differently really that delusional?

“You did the right thing”, Morgan says quietly behind her.

When Claire looks back, she realizes that Morgan hasn’t moved, hasn’t walked around the car to get to the driver’s side yet. Something about her attitude screams ‘unsure’ – and Claire is pretty sure it has to do with whether it’s a good idea to bring up what just happened with Breeze or not.

The parallels with the night after Jack showed up must be pretty hard to miss, too.

“I know”, Claire sighs. “And I’m glad I did, but it still feels… weird. It’ll pass, I guess. I was never that direct with her; I’m still catching up with the fact that the last hour wasn’t a fever dream.”

“You didn’t need me, the second time”, Morgan remarks.

Claire scrunches up her face. “Moral support”, she says lightly.

This is what she needs right now – some banter, maybe even some teasing if Morgan decides to play along. She needs something that’ll disperse some of the heaviness of the moment.

Morgan looks at her in a way that makes it clear she knows Claire didn’t need any moral support at this point, but she lets it slide. “Sure.”

“At least I have a witness to make sure it really did happen”, Claire quips.

(There’s some part of truth in there, though. She wasn’t joking; she does feel like the last hour might have been a fever dream.)

Morgan smiles, but it’s soft more than it is amused. “You were impressive in there, you know. I don’t think I’d ever seen that side of you before.”

Claire blames the blush that threatens to color her cheeks for the way she answers with the first thing that crosses her mind.

“Maybe not as impressive as how you stood up to Jack, but…”

She trails off when she realizes what just came out of her mouth. It’s kind of an unspoken rule between them since the night in question that they won’t bring it up again until Morgan is ready to talk about it any further, and she just broke it without even a second thought.

But Morgan only tenses up for a second, her eyes flashing with surprise and traces of pain at the same time, before she plasters a voluntarily cocky grin on her face and plays along. 

“I mean, I am pretty badass”, she agrees readily.

Her reaction is exaggerated on purpose, that much is obvious – honestly, Claire wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d added a hair flip for good measure –, but brash confidence is also such a Morgan Reznick trademark that it feels very on brand for her to choose to deflect an uncomfortable remark like that.

Claire kind of wants to slap herself for the desire to kiss her that surges inside of her mind at the sight, though.

(She also can’t help but remember how, eight months ago, it would have rather made her want to strangle Morgan… and she’s not entirely sure which situation was or is the hardest to handle anymore.)

Clearing her throat and rolling her eyes to distract herself from her stomach doing some improbable somersaults, Claire goes to open the passenger’s door and motions for Morgan to get in the car as well.

“Moving on”, she says pointedly once they’re both seated.

Thankfully, Morgan holds back whatever teasing remark she was seconds away from saying. Claire isn’t sure how many more emotional rollercoasters she can possibly handle today.

“Ready to go?” Morgan asks instead, still smiling, as she adjusts the rear-view mirrors for her height.

“Ready to go”, Claire confirms.

She lets her head fall against the window as Morgan starts up the engine, and they drive off in a comfortable silence as Claire begins to process the idea of being truly free from her mom’s presence for the very first time in her life.

They stop at the first diner they come across to, about half an hour into their trip back, to get themselves a late lunch. Claire eats it mostly in silence, still lost in her thoughts as she’s been since they left New Beginnings, and once they’re back in the car, she ends up dozing on and off most of the way back to San José. Morgan was right to insist on driving, it turns out.

When the question of what they’ll be doing next is brought up, they’ve already made their way into the city.

“Do you want me to stay at your place tonight again?” Morgan offers unprompted.

Claire thinks about it for a moment. She’s tempted to say yes at first, just because she’s everything but opposed to the idea of spending some more time with Morgan, but then she remembers that she’ll spend much of her Sunday at work – she switched shifts at the supermarket with a colleague to have her Saturday free – and tonight there’s a good chance she’ll crash into bed quite early, so there wouldn’t be much point in having Morgan stay just for the sake of it.

“No, it’s okay”, Claire finally says. “I’m not going to steal your entire weekend. Besides, I’m fine. I’ll just study until I go to sleep; you don’t have to worry about me.”

Morgan looks like she’s about to argue at first, but then she nods and lets it go. “If you’re sure.”

After that, it’s a few more minutes of silent driving until Claire speaks again.

“Thank you”, she says quietly.

Morgan glances at her, surprised, before returning her focus to the road. “Of course.”

“For coming with me”, Claire feels the need to clarify. “And for standing up to my mom when I froze at first.”

“I make myself useful sometimes”, Morgan jokes in response.

And anyone who doesn’t know her well enough would miss the undercurrent of tension in her voice, but Claire isn’t anyone and she’s spent too much time learning to read Morgan to be oblivious to it. Just like she can tell that the joking tone is a deflection. Just like she instantly understands where all of it comes from.

One of Morgan’s drives in life, the very same drive that’s making her study to become a surgeon, is helping people, because succeeding in doing so makes her feel like she accomplished something – like she matters. And Morgan desperately wants to matter.

It’s just happened so rarely in her life that she clearly doesn’t know how to react to receiving recognition and heartfelt thanks for it now. Hence the joking, to hide her real startled awkwardness.

Claire kind of plays along (but also not really).

“What would I do without you?” she replies, aiming for a light tone but landing somewhere in softness territory instead.

Judging by the look on Morgan’s face, the question takes her completely by surprise. It wasn’t really a question, though; Claire didn’t expect an answer, and yet she gets one anyway.

“You’d be just fine”, Morgan mumbles, her voice almost inaudible.

Claire recognizes it for what it is. Another deflection.

She doesn’t let Morgan get away with it.

“Morgan”, she insists gently.

“What?”

“I’m really glad to have you in my life. And not just when you make yourself useful.”

“You’re a sap”, Morgan retorts with an exaggerated eye roll.

This time, Claire stops pushing.

“And you have a stone-hearted reputation to maintain?” she teases instead.

“Exactly.”

Claire laughs, amused. “Right. Well then, you can drive yourself and your distaste for talking about feelings to your apartment; I’ll get the car back to mine afterwards. There’s no need for you to deal with public transportation when this will be way faster.”

Again, Morgan looks like she’s going to argue at first, but then she doesn’t.

Almost doesn’t.

“You know your apartment is closer to where we are now, right?”

Claire just shrugs.

And Morgan drives to her own place.

“Wait for me here a second”, Morgan tells Claire when she gets out of the car. She parked it in her street, as close to her apartment as she managed to get.

Claire wants to ask what she needs to wait for but Morgan is already out of earshot from inside the car; and by the time she removes her safety belt to get out as well, Morgan has already disappeared into the building of her apartment.

So she has no choice but to wait indeed.

Thankfully, it only takes a few minutes for Morgan to reappear. And while Claire immediately spots the large plastic bag that’s now in her hand, she can’t for the life of her figure out what it may contain until Morgan reaches the car and gives it to her.

“I thought you might need it tonight”, Morgan says by way of explanation.

‘It’ being Claire’s blanket, that’s stayed inside Morgan’s apartment since the stealing happened three weeks ago.

And Claire stares at it, inside the bag, for a few thoughtful moments before she comes to a conclusion and makes a subsequent decision.

She hands it back to Morgan.

“Actually?” she says, a smile slowly blossoming on her face. “I think I don’t need it anymore.”

Morgan’s eyes widen at that, but the surprise on her face quickly turns into what Claire dares read as pride (and maybe a hint of jealousy as well).

“It’ll still yours”, Morgan argues anyway instead of taking the blanket back.

Claire shakes her head. “You keep it.”

“But—”

“You keep it”, Claire insists, kindly but firmly.

She likes the idea of that blanket being passed on from one person who needs it help to the next over the years. She likes the idea of Morgan having it for the time being, until she feels like she doesn’t need it anymore either, even more.

“Are you sure?” Morgan insists as well.

“I want you to have it”, Claire confirms, saying part of her thoughts out loud.

Morgan hesitates a little longer before taking the bag back slowly, like she’s waiting for Claire to change her mind at the last minute; but that doesn’t happen, so the bag changes hands like it was supposed to.

“I’ll take good care of it”, Morgan promises.

“I know you will”, Claire replies, smiling. “See you on Monday?”

Morgan answers with a smile of her own. “Always.”

She turns around with the bag held firmly in her hand, and Claire watches her walk away until she disappears into the building again. Then she waits a little longer, without really knowing why, before sliding into the driver’s seat and heading back to her apartment.

The only thing on her mind, during the twenty minutes or so it takes her to get there due to the Saturday afternoon traffic, is the memory of Breeze calling Morgan her girlfriend. And not because she’s surprised by it anymore, since she rationalized it during the trip back – it does make sense to reach that conclusion, if you only consider how protective Morgan was and know very little else as in Breeze’s case –, but because…

Because there’s some kind of pattern emerging, as far as their relationship being misidentified goes. And Claire can’t get it out of her head.

Jenny thought she went on a date with Morgan. Her mom read Morgan as her girlfriend.

There’s a pattern here.

Why is there a pattern here?

(…

Do they really give off that much of a vibe that they’re a couple?!)

Chapter Text

“How do you ask someone out?”

There was no lead up to that question – they’ve done nothing but work on their biostatistics project for over an hour –, but it doesn’t surprise Claire anymore to hear Shaun just blurt out his thoughts without context. She’s gotten used to it over the months.

“Well—” she begins to answer; she’s cut off before she can go very far, though.

“Ooooh”, Lea sing-songs from the couch, where she’s been sprawled since she came back from her shift at Chick ‘n’ Bread a few minutes ago. “Someone’s finally ready to admit he has feelings for Carly!”

“Yes”, Shaun confirms, his tone staying neutral in a stark contrast to Lea’s. “How do I ask her out?”

Claire has to bite her lip to keep from fully grinning at this new development. Maybe, just maybe, she’s gotten a little too invested in seeing Shaun’s crush lead somewhere. (But if she has… what about it?)

“Don’t worry, it’s actually not that hard”, she rushes to reassure him, knowing how nervous he can get about situations he’s never experienced before.

A completely undignified snort from Lea prevents her from continuing.

“No offense, Claire”, she chimes in as she gets up from the couch and walks over to the table they’re sat at, “but I wouldn’t exactly call you an expert on asking someone out. So if you don’t mind, I think I’ll take the lead here.”

“What’s that supposed to m—” Claire starts to mutter, but then Lea gives her a look and oh.

Oh.

That look is awfully similar to Jenny’s. Which can only mean one thing.

(Is her crush on Morgan really that damn obvious?)

Claire vaguely hears Lea give some advice to Shaun after that – something about flowers and chocolate and dressing nice that sounds terribly cliché –, but she’s having quite some trouble paying attention to the actual words being used because she’s too focused on trying to rewind the last few… weeks? months? to figure out just how many people gave her similar looks on a semi-regular basis already. How many people saw her crush coming from a mile away?!

Her first conclusion is that her count seems to stop at three, thankfully. Lea, Jenny, and Alex.

Her second conclusion is that from all three, she started getting those looks way before she became aware of her feelings for Morgan – way before she even began developing them, she’d easily argue.

Her third conclusion is that she feels like she’s late to her own party, for lack of a less terrible metaphor. Could everyone but her really anticipate she’d end up stuck with that damn crush?

Was everyone just waiting for her to catch up with what was happening to her?

(Is that why Alex never teased her about her date with Jared, like she originally thought he would? Because, like Jenny, he was confused about her going on a date with someone that wasn’t Morgan more than anything else?)

In any case, she feels like a total idiot now.

And she can only thank the stars that Morgan, at least, doesn’t seem to have caught on to it.

(… Or did she?)

Before Claire can send herself into a spiral of panic over that thought, she’s brutally brought back to reality by Lea’s fingers snapping in front of her face.

“Earth to Claire! Less daydreaming, more doing”, Lea says amusedly. She’s pointing towards the scattered papers on the table with her chin for emphasis, but Claire still doesn’t miss the double meaning of her words.

She elects to pointedly ignore it, though. And since Lea is apparently done giving dating advice to Shaun, she does indeed go back to focusing on their project.

This is good. She needs the distraction right now.

Except they’ve been back at it for thirty seconds, at best, when the vibrations of Shaun’s phone on the table completely derail that plan.

“What is it?” Claire asks when Shaun begins to show signs of either anxiety or discomfort, as he reads the text he just received.

She doesn’t get an answer. Instead, Shaun puts the phone back down on the table and starts fiddling with his hands, on top of rocking back and forth slightly.

“Let me guess. Glassy’s done something you explicitly asked him not to again?” Lea mutters with an exasperated sigh, bending down to rummage through Shaun’s bag rather than waiting for an answer that’s likely to never come.

Claire is just confused by the whole situation.

It takes Lea finding Shaun’s toy scalpel – the one that his late brother gave him when they were kids –, placing it in his hands with a practiced ease that shows it’s not her first time deescalating a similar situation, and a good minute for Shaun to calm down before Claire finally gets an explanation.

“Pr Glassman wants to see me on Friday. We can’t work on our project with Morgan this week”, he says, still visibly upset.

“He wants to talk to you again?” Lea huffs. “What’s it going to be about this time – or do we just decide we don’t even care anymore, and I tell him where he can stick his last minute plans instead?”

Claire feels the need to ask for some clarification this time. “You know Pr Glassman?”

“Oh, Glassy and I have a history”, Lea replies through her teeth. “He used to come here at the beginning of the year to see Shaun… but that didn’t work out too well since he deals with disagreements really badly. So their meetings quickly moved to his office on campus, and he only sees Shaun there now.”

“… Disagreements?”

“He loves making decisions for Shaun like he’s still eight years old without even listening to his opinions; I’m a big fan of treating Shaun like an adult with autonomy. We don’t exactly get along.”

Claire raises her eyebrows in surprise. “I can imagine.”

“This text is very typical of him”, Lea grumbles. “He thinks he knows what’s best for Shaun, always all the time, but he can’t even remember not to impose late plans on him – because who cares if that is something he does actually struggle with, right? Clearly not Glassy!”

Even though she shares Lea’s annoyance now that she’s been presented with these new pieces of information, Claire chooses to refocus on Shaun rather than add fuel to the fire.

“Do you know how long your meeting will take? Morgan and I could go to Chick ‘n’ Bread, then join you here later once you’re back”, Claire offers.

“I don’t know”, Shaun says, still visibly anxious. “He wants to talk about my parents. My mom contacted him.”

For a split second, Claire feels like she might have somehow transferred a curse of family issues that require immediate attention onto Shaun, just by dealing with her own. Why do they all have to go through so much this year?

She doesn’t know much about his parents, besides the fact that they’re a touchy subject and that Shaun isn’t in contact with them. The intensity of his reaction to Pr Glassman’s text tells her that he’s not taking his mom’s sudden reappearance particularly well, though – and she can fully empathize with that.

“Well that explains why his text made you so upset”, Lea says with a grimace. Claire agrees; it’s not unusual for Shaun to react badly to last minute changes of plans, but it rarely reaches this extent. “So do you want to see or even just talk to your mom?”

“No”, Shaun says forcefully.

“Then don’t”, Claire tells him. “Or, at least, don’t think you should talk to her just because she tries to reach out. You have to do what’s best for you.”

She would have loved to never talk to Breeze again after coming to San José, and she would have been just fine telling her to stay away forever, if her mom had tried to contact her through a third party rather than show up on campus without a warning like she did. So if Shaun’s situation is in any way similar to hers? She can only guess he feels the same about his parents.

(Of course, she did keep tabs on Breeze through regular updates from New Beginnings for months – but after the three full days Claire’s had to reflect on this whole mess, she’s come to realize that some feelings of guilt were involved in this decision. Because even though she truly did care about how much progress her mom was making, and even though Breeze was the one to check herself in in the end, she also did feel guilty for basically dumping her there after visiting the place then driving away without a look back. So those updates were as much about her own conscience as they were about Breeze’s mental health.

And if she’d been given a choice in the first place?

She would have taken the option ‘never be in contact with my mom again’ after leaving their shared apartment with no hesitation.)

“Let me insist on something real quick: you have to do what you feel is best for you”, Lea emphasizes. “Not what someone else tells you is best for you.” A beat later, she adds: “And by someone else I do fully mean Glassy. Just in case it wasn’t clear enough.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore”, Shaun declares abruptly.

Lea shrugs a shoulder. “Fine by me. Just know that I’ll be taking you out for drinks on Friday after my shift at Chick ‘n’ Bread, because you’ll need to unwind for sure.”

Seeing as Shaun doesn’t seem to be intent on either agreeing or arguing, Claire decides to bring the conversation back to med school-related stuff.

“Since I doubt Morgan will be too happy about missing a session to work on our project, would you mind if we came tomorrow instead of Friday?” she suggests. Thursdays are always impossible for her with her volunteering work at the shelter, so Wednesday is their last available option.

The idea of more last-minute changes obviously upsets Shaun all over again, but he still does eventually agree.

“Okay.”

“Great. I’ll just text her to ask if she’s free then, and we’ll be all set.”

She grabs her phone to do just that, and somehow ends up both surprised and not surprised at the same time about how far back she needs to scroll to get to her conversation thread with Morgan. They never really text, for some reason; it seems odd, considering just how close they’ve become, but at the same time, they’re so used to talking and seeing each other in person that communication in written form now feels somewhat lacking to Claire in comparison. And it’s not like they need to keep in touch that way either, seeing as they haven’t been apart for more than a few days at a time in weeks.

So, really, what happens is that they only text each other out of need. Like right now.

Claire writes a quick message to ask if Morgan is indeed available for their rescheduled session, giving some minimal yet necessary context for the change of plans on Friday, then puts her phone back down and finally concentrates on the biostatistics calculations in front of her again.

Given how much effort it takes her to get back into the mathematics aspect of the subject, she’s extremely glad they don’t get interrupted again until it’s time for her to leave Shaun’s place.

Friday evening finds Morgan at Claire’s apartment this week too, with both of them going to Chick ‘n’ Bread to study then leaving together like they’ve done several times already. The major difference with all those previous occasions, though, is that there’s no good reason for it this time – yet neither of them bothered trying to find an excuse to justify the decision. Claire just asked on Thursday whether Morgan would come back to her place tomorrow again, and Morgan immediately answered with a smooth yes. It was that simple.

So simple that, although they don’t explicitly agree to keep spending their Friday nights together all the time from now on, it kind of becomes obvious that this is where they are headed. It feels too natural to make it a habit for them to have any doubts about it in their minds.

Jenny, of course, can’t resist teasing them (again) about Morgan’s continued presence in their apartment as soon as she spots them walking through the door partway through the evening.

“Hi Claire, hi Claire’s roommate”, she half-shouts from the kitchen, as a greeting to the both of them. She has a huge grin on her face, apparently thoroughly enjoying teasing Claire about her crush through hints and double meanings that no one else can catch, and Claire is so damn sensitive to it against her will that she almost ends up blushing at the words.

She’s going to kill Jenny later.

“Hi, Claire’s actual roommate”, Morgan retorts without missing a beat.

“If we want to get technical with words, I think it’d be more accurate to call me her flat mate, you know”, Jenny teases with a twinkle in her eye, obviously fighting not to fully dissolve into laughter. “But English can be a tricky language sometimes, so we’ll let it slide.”

(Claire is so going to kill her at some point during the weekend. She knows way too well what’s going though Jenny’s mind at the moment.)

On the other hand, the rest of her roommates – who are all hanging out on the couch in the living room for once – look extremely perplexed by Jenny’s behavior; and considering that she’s not particularly close to any of them, Claire would much rather keep it that way. There are some things she intends to keep private.

“We’ll leave the subtleties of English to you while we go try to learn the names of every muscle in the human body, okay?” Claire says with slightly forced humor to cut the teasing short. “We have some exams coming up next week and very little time left to be ready for them, unfortunately.”

“Sure”, Jenny replies, still grinning. “I know the drill; you two prefer to avoid socializing and go hole yourselves in your room directly instead, as usual. Last question before I let you escape my clutches, though: I’m guessing you already ate and don’t want any of the wonders I’m cooking?”

“Correct”, Claire confirms.

“Fine. But you’re missing out”, Jenny declares dramatically.

“We’ll survive”, Claire retorts, amused. “Good evening everyone, and good night if I don’t see you again until then!”

A chorus of “bye” and “good night” follows her as she walks to her room, Morgan a step behind her, but the voices die down quickly and Claire knows her roommates way too well after months of living with them not to figure out why: they’ve definitely picked up on something in Jenny’s behavior, and they’re just as definitely going to quiz her about it as soon as she and Morgan are (supposedly) our of earshot.

So instead of closing the door behind them, after letting Morgan go in first, Claire lingers on the threshold for a second too long to listen to the whispers that she’s sure will begin now that they left – and sure enough, a muffled “the hell was that, Jen?” reaches her ears almost immediately. The only answer this gets, though, is a nonchalant “private jokes” that does a great job at making it clear that there’s no point in insisting any further, and so Claire finally lets the door click shut, with the relief of knowing for sure that tonight is not the day her other roommates will find out about her crush on Morgan.

(Okay, fine. So maybe she’s only half going to murder Jenny after all.)

“Should we study for a bit or should we work on one of our numerous projects instead?” she asks Morgan, who’s already set her bag down on the desk and is in the process of getting her stuff out while Claire hasn’t even walked up to her bed yet.

“I’d rather we study”, Morgan answers honestly. “Working on a project at almost 9pm on a Friday night sounds like torture – even to me.”

That gets Claire to smile. “Agreed. Studying it is, then.”

Besides, her room is not quite the best place for them to work on projects together: their current setup is Morgan taking the desk while Claire makes herself comfortable on her bed instead, and it’s hardly efficient when it comes to showing each other stuff or passing notes – especially compared to their usual table at Chick ‘n’ Bread. So Morgan’s answer is really the one she was hoping for.

Before taking her textbooks out of her bag, Claire grabs her phone first, with the intent of sending Lea a message to know how Shaun’s meeting with Dr Glassman went. (She prefers to use her as a middle person rather than contact him directly, just in case it was overall terrible and he doesn’t want to talk about it any more than strictly necessary for the foreseeable future.) She gets derailed for a moment, though, when she notices a notification for a new text coming from Jared.

It’s the second time that happens since their date, the previous one being from a few days ago. He’d sent her a very relatable meme some other student made about med school, to which she’d replied with a few emojis, but that’s where it had ended – so she’s rather curious to see if she’ll get something similar this time, and she decides to open the text before she does anything else.

It’s an image again, but not a meme. It’s a pun – a drawing of three hip bones followed by the text ‘hooray! It’s Friday!’, that got captioned “Humerus weekend to you ;)” on top of it by Jared.

It’s terrible. That pun is terrible, arguably disastrous no matter which scale you try to measure it on, but it’s also just silly enough that it still manages to be hilarious somehow. (Well, either that, or surviving the stress of med school destroys people’s notions of good humor. Claire isn’t entirely sure which option is the correct one.)

Though to be fair, she doesn’t really care about the cause. All she knows is that she ends up laughing out loud without being able to stop herself.

And that, obviously, gets Morgan’s attention.

“What is it?” she asks with a slight frown.

Since Claire can’t figure out a way to explain such a bad pun without ending up butchering it entirely, she holds out her phone with the screen to Morgan so the latter can see the image and the accompanying text directly instead. “Jared sent me this.”

Morgan doesn’t laugh along, though. Quite the opposite, even – it causes her frown to turn into a full-blown scowl.

“Come on, it’s funny”, Claire says, still smiling. “Absolutely terrible, but funny.”

“Sure”, Morgan mutters. “Then by all means, keep texting him. But I ’d rather study.”

She turns back to the desk without another word then flips through a textbook until she finds the page that she wants, and there’s an awfully long delay filled with nothing but silence until it eventually dawns on Claire why Morgan has suddenly become so hostile.

“Okay, seriously, this has to stop”, she sighs, more tired of the whole situation than annoyed right now. “What is your problem with Jared?”

“I don’t have a problem with him”, Morgan retorts, stubbornly looking at the notes in front of her rather than at Claire.

“No, clearly, you just happen to be in a terrible mood every time I mention him for absolutely no reason at all”, Claire deadpans. She meant to sound more sarcastic than this, but that’s not exactly her strong suit and it shows. “Morgan”, she insists when she doesn’t get a reply.

Morgan keeps ignoring her, though, because of course she does, but Claire decides she’s not going to let it slide this time. She’s done with the whole ‘pretend the problem doesn’t exist until it goes away’ thing; they’ve tried it, it doesn’t work, so now they’re going to have to talk this through once and for all.

She scoots forward until she can swing her legs above the edge of the bed and get up. She’s decided that if Morgan isn’t going to turn around and face her on her own, then she will force her to acknowledge that they need to have that conversation – and if that involves closing the book in front of her while snatching away the notes next to it, thus taking away any possible distraction from her for the time being? Well. Then that’s exactly what she’s going to do.

“What is your problem with Jared?” she repeats patiently.

“I don’t have a problem with him”, Morgan repeats as well through gritted teeth, glaring at Claire who is holding the notes out of her reach.

“Then what do you have a problem with?” Claire sighs exasperatedly. There’s literally no reason why they should drag this on any longer… and yet.

She waits for Morgan to say or do something in response, whether deflecting again or trying to reopen her book as if they weren’t having that conversation at all – because that is something she would dare do –, but instead all Morgan does is just stare, then stare some more as she seems to be having an internal debate with herself.

Claire can’t for the life of her figure out what it could be about.

“Morgan”, she says again, softer this time. “Whatever it is, you know you can tell me, right?”

The air in the room seems to stay still for a moment after that, charged with something indescribable as Morgan’s eyes go from conflicted to steeled, and then things happen too quickly for Claire to have any hope to even begin processing them.

One second, she’s leaning back against the desk while Morgan is sitting on the chair next to her; the next, Morgan is standing right in front of her, so close Claire fully forgets how to breathe, and then…

And then, Claire both sees it coming and doesn’t understand it’s happening at the same time.

Sees it coming, because Morgan makes her intentions clear before she even starts leaning in. Sees it coming, too, because Morgan gives her ample time to move away if she wanted to.

Doesn’t understand it’s happening, because there is no fucking way this is actually—

Claire never finishes her train of thought. Her brain short-circuits first.

Somehow, the first words that make it past her lips, once she vaguely starts to come back to reality, are as simple and ridiculous as: “You just kissed me.”

Because that’s literally the only thought her poor dumbfounded brain is stuck on. An infinite loop, that she has no chance of escaping anytime soon.

Morgan just kissed her.

She had a dream like that once. (Or, okay, maybe more than once in the weeks since Jenny made her become aware of her crush on Morgan.) Is she dreaming this time too?

Her head feels fuzzy enough that she could honestly be, but she doesn’t need to pinch herself to know deep down that she isn’t. It really just happened.

And she has no idea what to do with that fact now.

Though she guesses that opening her eyes again – not that she has any memory of closing them in the first place – would be a good first step.

The only problem with that idea, she realizes as she follows through with it, is that she was not prepared to look at Morgan just yet. She was not prepared to deal with the reality of the situation in any way, shape, or form.

And apparently, she wasn’t the only one. Because while Morgan is frozen at first, almost paralyzed by her own actions, she immediately becomes frantic when she realizes that Claire is now looking back at her – wide-eyed, deer in headlights, I need to get out of here level of panic.

Claire has never seen her freak out like that before.

It’s… unsettling, to say the least. And a stark contrast to her own reaction, eerily calm to all appearances as she’s helplessly waiting for the shock to wear off.

Honestly, if it weren’t for her erratic heartbeat, nothing would physically betray the state of mental disarray she’s currently in. There’s a complete disconnect between her mind and her body, leaving her rooted to the spot with her mouth probably half agape and no hope of regaining control of it anytime soon.

Morgan freaking kissed her.

This truth, this entire moment, still feels too surreal to even begin to process. All she can do is keep standing there, unmoving, trying to prevent any panic of her own from beginning to seep through but otherwise at a complete loss for what to do now.

Some kind of instinct must still be functional inside of her brain, though, because as soon as she realizes that Morgan is going to bolt right out of her entire apartment within the next few seconds if she does nothing to stop her, she finds herself lunging forward to grab her forearm and stop Morgan from turning any farther towards the door. It’s not an action she can remember consciously ordering her body to do, but it’s a good one and it jolts her out of her stupor well enough.

“Oh no”, she breathes out as she pulls Morgan back towards her. She tugs more sharply than she means to, but she’s still trying to feel like she does inhabit her own body again and it’s making her movements rather jerky. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to kiss me and then just run away without so much as an explanation!”

“Let me go”, Morgan hisses, looking everywhere but at her.

“No”, Claire says, soft and firm at the same time. “You’re staying here. Like it or not, we need to talk about this – and the longer we wait, the harder it’ll be to address.”

Morgan snaps her eyes shut, breathes in shakily, and balls her hands into fists instead of replying, but she at least stops fighting the hold Claire has on her arm. It doesn’t mean Claire dares let go just yet, though, because she doesn’t trust Morgan not to take the opportunity to try to run again if she hands it out to her – and she’d rather not have to chase after her in her current state.

“We can’t, and we won’t, pretend this didn’t just happen”, she insists gently.

“Fine”, Morgan finally blurts out, boring her eyes into Claire’s as she reopens them while her face turns to steel. “Whatever. Go ahead, then, and let’s get this over with.”

Well. Now, Claire is perplexed to say the least.

“Let’s get what over with?”

Morgan clenches her jaw and tilts her chin up with stubborn pride, even as her eyes fail to conceal the pain that’s hiding behind that front. “You’re dating Jared and I just kissed you”, she says defiantly. “So I know where this is going, Claire. I’m not stupid.”

Stupid, obviously not. But gravely misinformed? Definitely so.

“I’m not dating Jared”, Claire says slowly, her mind going from blank and stuck to whiplash-inducing overdrive in the blink of an eye as some things start to suddenly made sense. Things being Morgan’s repeated taunts about him, and the way she closes off every time Jared is so much as mentioned in passing.

“Claire, I already know. I don’t see the point in pretending”, Morgan huffs, her voice betraying some background hurt and annoyance even as she seemed to be aiming for a convincingly emotionless tone.

Claire, for her part, is still thoroughly confused about where this could be coming from.

(And it’s easier, so much easier, to focus on clearing this misunderstanding rather than on the fact that Morgan kissed her. So she clings onto that distraction with all her might.)

“I’m not— We’re not— We went on one date and that was it. A one-time thing. End of story. What gave you the impression there was anything more to it?!”

“Besides your bright blush when I asked how your date went the next day?” Morgan retorts, hiding behind sarcasm now.

Claire barely pays attention to that, though, because the irony of the situation suddenly hits her fully and she lets out a wry, nervous chuckle that she can’t quite control. “Yeah, no. That blush had nothing to do with him – it was entirely because I realized I have a crush on you mere hours after the date in question.”

The words are out of her mouth before her brain got the option to veto them, tumbling out with a will of their own even as she desperately tries to hold them back, and the sound of them fills her with a level of panic that feels awfully similar to what Morgan’s looked like a minute earlier.

She didn’t mean to say that. She didn’t mean to say that.

How in the hell could she just let that slip?

Then again… Morgan did kiss her, didn’t she? She kissed her. There has to be a very good reason for that.

Claire is just too much of a mental wreck to analyze it any further. And too worried about developing misplaced hope to let herself do it in the first place.

So instead, she lets her mind run on an infinite blank loop while she fights the urge to run away from the scrutiny she’s suddenly under. Because Morgan is staring at her with fidget-inducing intensity, making the role reversal complete as her face betrays nothing but pure shock, and Claire has no single clue what to do with herself now.

Things, of course, only get worse when Morgan’s shock morphs into hurt. Because when she speaks again, it’s with a half-defeated, half-accusing tone this time.

“But you don’t want to.”

“Don’t want to what?” Claire asks dumbly, completely lost.

She’s not following. She’s so not following.

“Have a crush on me”, Morgan almost spits out.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that”, Claire mumbles. It’s not that she doesn’t want to have a crush on Morgan in and of itself – more like she doesn’t want to ruin everything because of that damn crush. Which, unfortunately, seems to be exactly what’s happening somehow. “Why do you even—”

She doesn’t have time to finish her sentence.

“You didn’t kiss me back”, Morgan interjects, bitter.

And…

And oh, yes, that might indeed be true, now that Claire thinks back about it. She was too stunned, to frozen, to react in any way to Morgan’s kiss – and that very well might have included her lips. The memory is way too hazy for her to be able to recall the scene in detail, but… yes, she does understand Morgan’s reaction now. It was a fair assumption to make.

“You kind of—” she begins to say, but she quickly cuts herself off. Talking is not an efficient approach right now, as evidenced by the past five minutes they’ve spent doing nothing but clearing up misunderstanding after misunderstanding; so she can tell that if they’re going to get anywhere with this anytime soon, she needs to switch to a different approach.

More specifically, she needs to switch to one particular approach – to the approach. The one that requires being bold and reckless and avoiding thinking about the potential consequences at all costs.

The one named ‘initiating a second kiss with Morgan before she can talk herself out of it’.

Thankfully, they’re already standing so close to each other that Claire barely has to take a half-step before she’s fully into Morgan’s space; and once there, she waits just long enough to be sure that Morgan isn’t going to take a move away before she’s tilting her head up to brush their lips together.

“Better?” she whispers as she moves back minutely, quite dazed again although this should barely even qualify as a kiss.

Morgan’s only response is a tentative smile, that grows wider by the second until it becomes an irrepressible grin, and Claire has to bite her lip to stop herself from matching it. She’s too nervous and unsure about where this will lead them to feel anywhere near as much relief as Morgan seems to be flooded with, but some of it still is communicative.

“So if I were to do this again…” Morgan says slowly, the aplomb from the first kiss reappearing all of a sudden.

Claire puts a hand up before she can start leaning in, though.

“We need to talk about this first.”

They so need to have a long, very long chat about what this means for them before they go any further down this path. Until then, all they’re really doing is playing with fire.

“I’m pretty sure we just did”, Morgan retorts, giving her a fond yet exasperated look – though she still hasn’t stopped smiling.

Claire takes a step back and goes to sit on the edge of her bed, alleviating some of the tension that’s been steadily growing between Morgan and her since they kissed for a second time. She needs to be a little farther away if she hopes to think this through, and it got getting increasingly more difficult by the second to remember why she should not just give in and kiss Morgan again right there when they were in such close proximity.

“No, we really did not”, she says in a breathless exhale. “And I know you hate talking about your feelings, but we both need to be one hundred percent sure we’re on the same page about what we want from each other if we’re going to give… whatever this is a go.”

Morgan waves her concerns away, obviously trying to evade having that very conversation. “Or we can just figure it out along the way.”

Claire takes the time to shape her next sentences properly before she pushes them out and lets them hang in the air.

“Morgan, your last relationship turned out to be a disaster that scarred you pretty deeply—”

“I can handle this”, Morgan retorts through gritted teeth. “I can. I’m not damaged.”

“—And while the circumstances are completely different with us”, Claire continues, ignoring the interruption that she should really have expected because of course Morgan would assume that’s where she was going with this, “while I would never hurt you on purpose, the last thing I want is to eventually, involuntarily end up with the same result anyway if it turns out this is a mistake and we should have known from the start. So, yes. We do need to talk about this. Whether it feels comfortable to do so or not.”

Claire braces herself for Morgan’s wrath as soon as she’s done with her speech, all too aware that she just broke an unspoken rule by deliberately bringing up Jack, but that anger surprisingly never comes. Instead, Morgan keeps staring at Claire with the traces of an internal conflict clearly written all over her face, as if several parts of her were fighting for control of her reactions; and since Claire always strives to figure out what’s going on inside Morgan’s inner world to the best of her ability, to the point where it has almost become second nature to her by now, she uses that time to try to do just that.

It’s hard, though, for once. Because she’s completely out of her depth – and has been from the moment Morgan leaned in to kissed her.

Because she has no idea what prompted her to do that in the first place.

Besides, Claire isn’t quite sure how it’s possible for Morgan to be so insecure and confident at the same time, going from one state to the next in the blink of an eye – as if she kept pressing a switch that didn’t want to stay on for too long, and gave little to no warning as to when she would do it next. She was confident when she got up to kiss her, then in a complete state of panic afterwards to the point of trying to bolt, then confident again after their second kiss…

Almost like those were the two sides of a coin that kept flipping in the air. And Morgan had involuntarily lost control of it.

Except… No. A coin isn’t quite what it is.

Claire suddenly realizes that she’s misunderstood something from the very start. She always assumed that Morgan keeps her insecurities and her past hidden from the world through a mental armor, just like she does, but the truth is – in Morgan’s case, it’s not so much an armor as it is a weapon. Because while Claire had to learn how to project self-confidence and build a shield of high walls to protect herself… Morgan didn’t need any of that. She was pretty much born a confident fighter.

Morgan doesn’t need a shield to hide or defend herself. Instead, she wields a sword, and attacks first. (And sure, she can push an overtly confident persona to the front for extra protection when needed, but it’s still vastly different from Claire’s ‘fake it till you make it’ approach.)

It makes perfect sense now, why Morgan reacts the way she does when she’s metaphorically knocked off balance. Confidence is and has always been her default; she doesn’t need time to fix the cracks in a shield that gets damaged, because there is no shield. There’s just a sword – one that can fall from her hands, if an event exceptionally manages to overpower her usual iron grip on it, but it’s a sword. It can be picked up and readjusted in a perfect guard a lot faster than a shield can be repaired.

And the only reason why Claire can see Morgan’s insecurities flickering in and out of view often when they’re alone together these days is because Morgan doesn’t grip that sword so tightly around her anymore. Where Claire lowers her shield, Morgan lets the tip of her weapon rest on the ground.

Same result. Vastly different causes.

And Claire probably kind of knew that already, on some level. But she obviously hadn’t connected all the dots yet.

So, now that she has, she just waits. She knows that it won’t take long for Morgan to go back to being self-assured again.

And sure enough, not even a minute later—

“You are annoyingly good at bringing up valid points”, Morgan grumbles. “But for the record, there’s already a major difference between you and Jack. And it’s that I never had any feelings for him.”

Oh. Oh, there it is. Morgan’s reason for kissing her, without any ambiguity left.

Claire kind of feels like she’s floating.

(She’d had time to imagine a lot of different things already. It could have been physical attraction only, or an attempt to one-up Jared if Morgan felt like he was stealing her away, or…

Well, her imagination can run pretty wild when it’s left unchecked.

But now? Now, she has hope, and that’s oh so dangerous.)

“Since when…?” Claire asks before she can stop herself, curiosity taking the better of her.

“It was gradual”, Morgan eludes.

“But why did you kiss me tonight specifically?” Claire insists, causing Morgan to huff.

“Is this a talk or an interrogation?!”

“That’s me asking for some context first!”

“The context is that I made the reckless decision to show you why it’s not Jared as a person that I have a problem with since I had no idea how to say it, even if I regretted it almost instantly because I knew I shouldn’t have done that and I couldn’t tell how you’d react, but now we’re back in the exact same situation and you’re just making me want to do it again!”

“Well, don’t”, Claire retorts, using a stern tone that’s meant to force herself to stay focused a lot more than it there is to issue a warning to Morgan. It’s clearly failing, though, because she’s already biting her lip by the time she adds: “Not yet, at least.”

And Morgan has the audacity to smirk. “Are you sure about that?”

(The worst part is that it’s terribly attractive.)

“Stop”, Claire retorts, hating the fact that her voice comes out almost like a whine. “Yes, I’m sure. You are not kissing me again until we’ve actually, properly talked!”

“Then do us both a favor and tell me what you want us to talk about at last, because so far you haven’t exactly made it clear!”

“I want to know…” Claire starts slowly. “I want to be sure that we both want the same thing. Because if this has any chance of ruining our friendship… I’m not sure I want to take that risk. No matter how tempting it is.”

“I want to kiss you”, Morgan replies without missing a beat.

It makes Claire smile. “Yes, you’ve made that pretty clear – and for the record, I do want to kiss you too. But I’m worried about what happens after that.”

“Well, the logical answer is that we date each other”, Morgan says evenly.

“And what does that look like? Going to restaurants or staying here, cuddling? Are you ready to be out in public? Do you—”

Morgan interrupts Claire halfway through her questioning.

“I don’t know!” she exclaims, frustration radiating from her in waves. “I never even kissed anyone other than Jack until tonight, okay? I have no clue what I want from a relationship, much less one where I do have feelings involved – and I’m not going to figure it out right now on the spot! So can you just stop asking questions I don’t have any answers for?!”

Completely taken aback by Morgan’s outburst, Claire does little more than blink in surprise. She had honestly not thought about this, much less taken it into consideration, when she decided they should check whether they’re on the same page or not.

“And if you’re not willing to figure it out with me, then no. I guess there’s no point in taking this any further indeed”, Morgan finally adds, bitter.

“That’s not what I meant” Claire rushes to say. “I just… I just want to know what’s okay and what’s not; I want us to have clear boundaries so we don’t accidentally cross them. And I don’t actually care if you don’t know where they are right now – all I want is to be sure that you’ll tell me about them as you figure them out along the way. I…”

Claire bites her tongue and stops talking for a moment. She knows that she’s about to make this conversation extremely uncomfortable for Morgan; and while she knows there’s no point in avoiding it any longer, it doesn’t mean she’s looking forward to it at all.

She still decides she prefers to take a break from the heavy stuff first, before she inevitably makes it worse. Because she doesn’t want to keep having this conversation with Morgan standing in the middle of her room and too much space between them; it just doesn’t feel right.

“Come here”, she whispers, tilting her head to the side to indicate the bed next to her.

“I don’t think—”

“Please”, Claire insists gently.

Morgan half-glares at her, but she does move to sit on the bed a second later. “Happy?”

Claire elects to ignore the rhetorical question.

“You’re not going to like what I’m about to say.”

“You say that like I don’t already despise this entire conversation”, Morgan retorts, eyes narrowed.

“Unfortunately, I’m about to make it worse”, Claire murmurs, a sad smile on her face. She still goes for it. “I remember… I remember everything you told me about your years with Jack.”

Morgan tenses up immediately.

“You did say you went along with what he wanted in your relationship because that seemed better than speaking up and risking losing him, and— Morgan, I don’t think you understand how scared I am that this might happen with us too. I need… I need to know you’ll tell me if anything I do ever makes you uncomfortable – and I do mean anything. I want you to feel like you can be as open about your comfort zone and confident in standing up for yourself in a relationship as you usually are for literally everything else. But that requires talking about your feelings – something you’ve made pretty clear you hate –, and… and right now, you’re not helping me trust you won’t stay passive if I do something you’re not ready for. That’s why I want us to talk so much, okay? Because I don’t ever, ever want you to not feel safe with me. So can you try to cooperate just a little bit? Please?”

By the time Claire is done talking, Morgan has relaxed somewhat; and although her eyes have gotten a little glossy, she doesn’t look nearly as vulnerable or furious as Claire expected she might. Instead, she seems… almost at peace.

“Unlike you, Jack never really cared about what I wanted or needed”, she replies after a beat of silence. “And I think a part of me knew from the start that I shouldn’t trust him fully – that’s why I went along with what he wanted. Because I was worried I would lose him entirely if I didn’t. But you’ve… you’ve stuck with me through so much already that I trust it won’t happen with you. Even if we mess this up terribly. And I also know you’ll call me out if you feel like I’m trying to avoid talking about something – I mean, look at how persistent you’ve been already… So I’m not personally worried about that.” Morgan shrugs, then pins Claire with a fierce stare. “Is that good enough for you?”

Claire takes the time she needs to process everything Morgan just said before she finally nods, a small smile slowly forming on her face. Yes, it’s good enough for her. Because by being fully honest in her reply to her worries, even though she clearly hated being cornered into it, Morgan just alleviated them a great deal.

So maybe, just maybe, they can do this without risking endangering everything they’ve already built between them. Maybe, just maybe, there’s no reason to delay the inevitable any longer.

(Holy shit. Holy shit this might really be happening. Tonight might very well end with Morgan becoming her girlfriend.)

(Claire can tell that her brain hasn’t fully caught on with that fact just yet. Because otherwise she has a feeling she’d be fully freaking out at the moment.)

She brings a hand up to push some strands of hair away from Morgan’s face, reveling in the fact that she can do that without feeling weird or self-conscious or guilty because holy shit her crush is actually not unrequited. “Is this okay?” she still whispers as she lets her fingers linger in Morgan’s hair, feeling compelled to ask for consent even if just for a gesture that trivial.

“Oh my god, Claire, what on Earth is going to make you finally shut up?!” Morgan grumbles in response, her eyes dropping to Claire’s lips with exasperated insistence.

“Hopefully a kiss?” Claire replies, surprising herself with how easily she switches to a teasing tone now that they’re done with the heavy topics and unable to keep from grinning as her heart begins to go haywire in her chest again.

She can’t believe she’s actually going to get to kiss Morgan, properly this time. She’s still not fully convinced the last fifteen minutes actually did happen, even as she’s already leaning in.

But Morgan meets her halfway – and every doubt she still had just disappears as she finally, mercifully, stops trying to reason this away.

Chapter Text

If Claire wanted to be sappy, there are a lot of cliché phrases she could use to describe what her first real kiss with Morgan feels like. She could say it feels like everything is finally clicking into place, or like coming up for air after a long time underwater… but none of those seem quite right, because the truth is: it’s not, in fact, a life-changing or Earth-shattering moment. It mostly just feels like the most natural thing in the world – like everything since they met has led up to this, because it was inevitable from the start.

(Considering how many people apparently saw it coming way before she did, Claire wonders if maybe it truly was.

Then again, right this second, she doesn’t quite care about how they got there. She just cares about the fact that it really is happening.)

Morgan’s lips against hers are soft, slow, searching, and Claire lets her set the pace, acutely aware that, for all her confidence, this is still very much uncharted territory for Morgan and it needs to be treated as such. She’s content to just follow along, tangling her fingers in Morgan’s hair like she’s dreamed of doing so many times and focusing on the heat spreading from her hips as Morgan grips them tightly.

It all still feels like a dream too good to be true.

The dream ends a little too abruptly, though, when Morgan decides to put a bit more energy into the kiss and takes Claire completely by surprise. They’re still on the edge of the bed, angled towards each other in what is arguably a not the most comfortable position in the world to get lost in a kiss; so now with Morgan’s surge forward on top of it, Claire ends up pushed too far back to be able to stay upright and loses her balance in a completely unexpected way – a situation that she has no hope to salvage while her hands are still on Morgan’s neck, rather than behind her to stop her fall.

Too stunned to react and let go in time, she ends up bringing Morgan down with her, and they both land on the mattress with completely undignified yelps that do a good job at pulling them both back to reality.

“Well that just—” Claire begins to breathe out, but the look on Morgan’s face – both confused and affronted at the same time, somehow – as she props herself up on a elbow is too much for Claire to handle.

She bursts into laughter.

“What?” Morgan grumbles, hiding her wounded pride behind a totally inefficient glare.

But Claire never figures out a way to answer her, because what started out as light giggling quickly turns into hysterical laughter that brings tears to her eyes as all the tension she’s accumulated during the evening finally flows out of her.

She just kissed Morgan. Better yet, she gets to do it again whenever she wants.

She has no reason to spend so much energy trying to keep her crush hidden anymore.

It feels… incredible.

And as she keeps laughing, so hard she now needs to gasp for air to fill her lungs, Morgan abandons all notion of a glare in favor of a soft – if slightly exasperated – look that steals Claire’s breath away even more.

Is that new? Or did Morgan look at her like that already, and she was simply too blind to see it?

Did it only happen when she wasn’t watching?

In any case, she understands what Jenny meant when she talked about heart eyes now. It’s so obvious.

(… She’s never going to hear the end of it.)

And she says as much, once she’s finally managed to catch her breath a little. “Jenny’s so going to have a field day with this”, she groans in between residual chuckles.

Morgan’s voice is wary when she replies. “Why?”

“‘See? You should have listened to me’”, Claire answers, doing the best imitation of Jenny she can muster in her current state. “‘I’m always right, you should know that by now. So why do you insist on making your own life harder?’ She’s going to have the time of her life teasing me mercilessly.”

“She knows?”

“That I have a crush on you? She figured it out way before I did. Called me out on it, too”, Claire sighs. She pushes herself a little more towards the head of the bed so she can lie down properly with her head on her pillow, and Morgan uses that time to readjust her position too.

“Does anyone else know?” Morgan asks, shoulders getting tense all of a sudden.

“Officially? No. But Lea’s definitely figured it out, and I think Alex did too. Why? Does it bother you?”

“No”, Morgan replies through her teeth, her fiery stubbornness rearing its head again.

“What did we just talk about two minutes ago?” Claire sighs, side-eyeing she a little. “You need to tell me if something is making you uncomfortable – and this obviously does.”

“Fine. Yes. The last thing I want is for Lea to try to meddle somehow”, Morgan retorts.

“It’s not just that, though, is it?” Claire insists, bringing a hand up to play with a few wild strands of Morgan’s hair. “You don’t want anyone to know about us at first.”

“No”, Morgan finally admits. “I don’t— I’m not—”

“It’s okay if you’re not ready”, Claire reassures her with a smile. “We can take it slow – we should, even, considering how bad we’ve been at communicating with each other so far.”

“I just hate it when someone tries to invite themselves into my private life”, Morgan feels compelled to explain. “And being open about being a— about my— about us being together is going to make a lot of people do that, so… I’d rather not.”

Claire nods, which feels – and probably looks – a bit awkward with her head on propped up on the pillow. “Then we keep it to ourselves for the time being. Well, Jenny will definitely be in the know because she’s way too good at reading me – I’m pretty sure she’ll figure it out in less than a minute the next time she sees me –, but that’ll be it for now. How does that sound?”

“Good”, Morgan decides before she bites her lip and a glint of mischief appears in her eyes. “Now, where were we?”

“In the middle of something?” Claire suggests, her heart beginning to beat a little erratically for the umpteenth time that evening.

Morgan grins. “That’s what I thought too.”

They kind of lose track of time for a while after that.

It takes a lot of willpower for them to eventually separate and go back to what they were originally supposed to do – studying. Claire didn’t lie to Jenny earlier; they do have exams coming up soon and neither of them feels prepared enough to envision them serenely yet, so they really need to buckle down and redouble their efforts. And seeing as that they already lost quite a few hours of precious time the previous Saturday to go see Breeze, it’s not like they can afford much more additional distraction.

(Unfortunately.)

They still end up back on Claire’s bed together once they’ve changed into their PJs for the night, though. It seems they just can’t resist their craving for closeness.

But rather than sitting shoulder to shoulder at first like they usually do, they lie facing each other instead this time, and do little more than look at each other in silence for a while. Claire finds it kind of strange, the ability to study Morgan’s plainly written emotions this openly without having to keep her own in check still brand new to her, but she revels in it with a complicated mix of awe and thrill that makes her wonder when it’ll stop feeling so surreal.

To be fair, there are some things they’re still holding back. Claire can tell that Morgan is a bit guarded under such open scrutiny, which is completely normal considering how unusual it is for her to willingly subject herself to that, and as for her, she does rein in some of her feelings so she doesn’t reveal just how far gone she is already.

Slow. They need to take this slow.

And they also need to take care of their exhausted minds and bodies, which requires some well-earned rest; so after a few minutes have passed, Claire feels the need to remind them of that out loud. “We do need to go to sleep at some point”, she reluctantly whispers.

“We do”, Morgan agrees.

“Are you going to move?” Claire asks, amused.

Morgan just shrugs a shoulder instead of answering.

Claire shakes her head fondly. “Do I need to remind you that my bed isn’t big enough for us to sleep next to each other like that? You’re already too close to the edge as it is, in case you didn’t notice!”

“You know what? Good point”, Morgan says, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

And Claire quickly understands why. Because Morgan does move – but to get closer, halfway on top of her. Not to move to the air mattress that they set up earlier, as usual.

“That’s so not what I meant”, Claire says, laughing quietly.

She likes this side of Morgan, though, soft and teasing and playful in addition to confident as she messes with her for the sole purpose of getting her way. It feels so private – especially since she never really saw it before tonight –, and Claire lets the warmth it brings spread in her chest unabated.

Besides, it’s not like she really wants Morgan to move away either. In fact, she’d be perfectly content to spend the night holding Morgan close, if that were a viable option.

“This is really not a good idea”, she still insists when Morgan doesn’t reply immediately.

Her voice fully lacks conviction, though.

And her fingers do find their way into Morgan’s hair, almost against her will.

“I don’t care. If I fall, I fall.”

Claire stops arguing then. Morgan has clearly made up her mind, and she knows by experience that getting her to change it will be nearly impossible.

So… “Well then. Suit yourself”, she says.

She reaches blindly above her head for the switch of her beside lamp, but stops mid-gesture when an already sleepy Morgan raises her head from where it was resting half on top of Claire’s chest to look at her with slightly narrowed eyes. This… feels like a bad time to switch off the light.

“I don’t even get a good night kiss?” Morgan asks teasingly.

Claire can’t help but chuckle at her antics, even as she exaggerates an eye roll to pretend she doesn’t find them extremely endearing. “You’re impossible.”

Morgan completely ignores that comment, though, in favor of tilting her head and placing an eagerly-returned kiss on Claire’s lips.

“Better.”

“Hmm, yes. Good night, Morgan”, Claire just murmurs, giving the words a sense of finality as she finally plunges the room into darkness. She can already feel her mind getting hazy, and she doesn’t see the point in fighting it any longer.

The last thing she does, before sleep quickly overtakes her, is readjust her body so she can comfortably wrap an arm over Morgan’s back. If they’re going to spend the night tangled up together, they should at least try to make sure they won’t be too sore because of it in a few hours.

To have the memory of their first night sharing a bed tainted with something so trivial would really be too much of a shame.

One look. Jenny only needs to take one look at them in the kitchen the next morning to figure out that something happened between them.

“At long last”, she says dramatically. “You two sure did take your sweet time!”

“How even—” Morgan mutters, eyes going from Jenny to Claire and back with an incredulous look.

“I don’t know, and for my own sanity, I stopped trying to understand how it’s possible a while ago. I’ve just accepted that I can’t keep secrets from her.”

Jenny shrugs unapologetically. “You make it too easy. And for the record, if you don’t want anyone within a five-mile radius to figure it out, you should probably tone down that ‘major heart eyes and private smile’ combo you have going on. It’s a dead giveaway.”

“We’re not—” Claire protests weakly.

Jenny outright snorts. “Should I go get a mirror?”

“No”, Morgan says shortly.

“Hmm, getting flustered puts you in a bad mood. Got it”, Jenny teases, grinning, before switching her focus to Claire. “Anyway, I don’t want to gloat to much, but can we talk about the fact that I told you so? And then you categorically refused to listen to me?”

“Do we really have to do this at 8 in the freaking morning?” Claire complains, heading to the coffee machine so she can turn her back to Jenny and Morgan and hide the furious blush that’s starting to color her cheeks.

“Alright, alright, I got the message. I’ll back off”, Jenny replies, though her grin still doesn’t go anywhere. “Enjoy a few more hours of relative peace before I start to ask about the juicy details.”

Claire opens her mouth to tell Jenny that she’ll only get them in her dreams – while being fully aware that, in truth, it won’t take much convincing before she stops being able to resist sharing –, but the sound of a door opening prevents anyone from adding anything more.

“‘Morning”, Ellen says through a yawn. “Make some coffee for me too, Claire, please? It’s too early to be alive.”

“Sure. Anyone else?” Claire asks, extremely glad about the distraction Ellen is providing. When neither Morgan nor Jenny give a positive answer, she simply puts in another dose before turning on the coffee maker.

They all begin preparing a light breakfast as it brews, passing items to each other or setting them down on the table in silence save for the occasional yawn, and it doesn’t take long before they’re all sat on a chair and spreading jam on a few slices of bread. Too lost in their thoughts to make any more conversation as they eat – well, apart from Jenny, but for all her teasing she does know better than to bring up what she really wants to talk about while Ellen is there –, it doesn’t take long for them to finish and put the plates as well as the cutlery in the dishwasher.

By the time Claire and Morgan are back behind a closed bedroom door, something resembling light awkwardness has had time to settle between them. The feeling of a moment out of time that had enveloped them the previous night has dissipated, and it leaves in its wake the major ‘what now?’ question that they haven’t exactly discussed in details yet.

The awkwardness doesn’t last too long, though, thankfully. Because they work through it pretty quickly.

“So you didn’t fall off the bed after all”, Claire says lightly. The only notable thing that happened during the night, barely enough to half-wake her up, was Morgan stirring a little bit too much – but Claire suspects that had something to do with the early stages of a nightmare more than anything else.

“I told you I wouldn’t”, Morgan retorts, rather smug.

“You did”, Claire agrees. “Anyway. Should we…”

She trails off, doing a vague hand gesture to indicate the papers and books scattered across the desk, but also ends up biting her lip without really thinking about it. Her mind can’t help but wander in a completely different direction, and she’s helpless to stop it.

“Study”, Morgan says decidedly.

She still kisses Claire first.

It’s kind of strange, how effortlessly comfortable they are about this already. The first stages of dating are usually vastly different – but then again, Claire guesses that entering a relationship with the person you know best and who knows you best in the entire world has very little in common with regular dating. Especially when the person in question is someone as confident as Morgan.

In fact, admitting their feelings for each other seems to have changed very little between them. It added things, sure – they have additional kissing privileges now, and a free pass to express their affection without trying to stay within the realm of friendship-appropriate –, but the core of their relationship has stayed exactly the same.

Feelings or not, they trust and know each other oh so well. And as long at that stays intact, they can just go with the flow for everything else.

“Study”, Claire repeats after Morgan pulls away. “Yes. Study.”

It’s kind of hard to focus when your pulse is worryingly fast and your insides are busy doing a million kiss-induced somersaults.

(Morgan seems to be in the same state, at least. Though with an additional self-satisfied smile on her face.)

Claire breathes out slowly and shakes her head at herself. “God, we’re such idiots.”

“Speak for yourself”, Morgan shoots back without missing a beat.

“No, I mean— We could have done this weeks ago, if we hadn’t been so terrible at communicating with each other. But I freaked out so much; I would have never said anything. I was way too worried about making things weird or uncomfortable if I did.”

Morgan raises her eyebrows. “Lucky I forgot the meaning of impulse control yesterday, then.”

“I can’t believe you thought I was dating Jared”, Claire continues, amused. “I mean, at least it explains why you were so jealous, but… No. He’s just a friend – and I kind of already knew that’s all he would ever be before we even got to that restaurant.”

“Aren’t we supposed to study?” Morgan reminds them both.

“Is that a nice way of telling me to shut up?”

“Yes. Please stop talking.”

“Fine”, Claire says, chuckling. “The desk is yours, then.”

They do need to study – and they need to study hard. They have no more spare time left to lose.

It sucks, but Claire can tell that they both know they won’t be able to afford making their relationship a priority until the end of the year. Exploring it any further will have to wait.

They’re both too lucid to delude themselves.

Med school will always come first.

Lunch break on Monday doesn’t quite go the way Claire expected it to.

“I have a girlfriend”, Shaun announces right after they sit down.

“So do I”, Claire almost replies automatically, but she holds the words back just in time. She still can’t help but glance at Morgan who is obviously having similar thoughts, and ends up catching sight of the look Alex is giving them in the process.

Oh, of course.

Why does everyone see right through them?!

It doesn’t matter. They’ll just play dumb for as long as they can.

“That’s amazing”, Claire says enthusiastically, choosing to focus solely on Shaun for the time being. “You must be so happy.”

“I am”, Shaun confirms. Then, without a warning, he adds: “My dad is dying.”

That’s… so not what Claire was expecting him to say next. 

It sure does explain why his mom was trying to get in touch with him, though. (Not that Claire would know anything more about that – since, as she realizes with a tremendous amount of guilt, she never did write the text she intended to send to Lea on Friday. It completely slipped her mind after Morgan kissed her, and she only remembered about it now. Shit. She really needs to work on being a better friend to him when stuff is going on in her life.)

“Oh, Shaun, I’m so sorry”, she breathes out.

Morgan, however, just raises her eyebrows at him. “You don’t sound so upset about it.”

Of course, Morgan wouldn’t sugarcoat her thoughts any more than she would bother with platitudes. Prioritizing someone’s comfort over the truth is just not how she moves around in the world.

“I’m not”, Shaun says in response.

“Shaun, it’s your dad we’re talking about”, Alex chimes in, voice gentle. “It’s okay and normal to be upset he’s dying.”

“But I’m not”, Shaun insists. “All he ever did was hurt me or be mean to me. I don’t care if he dies.”

“There’s no reason why you should”, Morgan says. “You just need to ask yourself – is there something, anything you’ve always wanted to tell him, and that you will regret if you never do? Because now’s your last chance.”

Shaun considers that for a moment. “No. He wants to talk to me, but I don’t. I don’t want to see him.”

“Then you don’t have to do anything”, Claire says.

“My mom and Pr Glassman think I should hear him out.”

“Out of pure curiosity, what did Lea say about that?”

“That I am an adult and I have the right to make my own decisions based on what I feel is best for me, rather than what someone else thinks I should do.”

Morgan blinks in surprise. “Shockingly, I agree with her for once. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. Some people are just not worth your time and effort.”

“I know I’m kind of playing devil’s advocate here, but aren’t you curious at least?” Alex asks. “Don’t you want to know what he has to say to you now? I just want to make sure you’ve thought of everything before you make a decision.”

“If I want to know one day, I’ll ask my mom”, Shaun answers. “He told her – she’d just prefer I hear it from him now. But I don’t.”

“Then it’s an easy decision to make”, Morgan concludes.

“Yes. But Pr Glassman disagrees.”

“Shaun, I know you owe him a lot, but it’s your life. Not his”, Claire reminds him gently.

“Lea said the same thing.”

“And Morgan agrees with her”, Alex says with a hint of humor in his voice. “That happens so rarely; it has to mean something.”

Instead of commenting on that, Shaun stays quiet for a little while.

Then— “I should buy more flowers for Carly. She liked the ones I brought her on Saturday.”

It makes Claire smile. “You can do that. But you don’t have to buy her flowers every time, you know; she’ll be happy to see you with or without them.”

“Hmm”, Shaun replies, pensive. “Okay.”

“So”, Alex cuts in, going along with the change of subject. “When do I get to meet this Carly exactly? I’m the only one who doesn’t know her!”

“You have some strange priorities during an exams week”, Morgan immediately comments.

“Some people don’t just live and breathe med school”, Alex retorts, unperturbed.

Morgan throws a saccharine smile at him. “Sure. But those people won’t be top-ranked at the end of the semester, now will they?”

“And everyone has different goals, and I feel like we’ve had a similar conversation about a hundred times since the beginning of the year already”, Claire sighs. “So could you two just… agree to disagree as usual? But like, right now?”

Alex raises his hands in surrender. “Fine by me. I’m not the one who started it.”

Morgan doesn’t drag it on any longer either – although she can’t resist one last taunt. “Fine by me too. I’m the one with the perfect GPA.”

“I’m ignoring you”, Alex grumbles.

In the end, he never gets an answer for when he’ll get to meet Carly. Shaun elected to put on his noise-cancelling earphones while Alex and Morgan were arguing, and so the question is brushed aside and completely forgotten by the time he emerges from his own little bubble at the end of their lunch break.

At the end of their pharmaceutics class the next day, Carly takes Claire aside to talk to her for a minute. It’s unusual enough in itself – but the way she’s glaring daggers makes it even weirder.

“I don’t appreciate you meddling in my relationship with Shaun”, she hisses, obviously furious. 

Claire is… extremely confused.

“What are you talking about?”

“What does it matter to you if he brings me flowers every time he comes to my place?”

It takes a second for Claire to even remember her offhand comment to Shaun on that topic.

“I just wanted to—” she starts to defend herself, but then she decides not to bother. “Listen, Carly, I know you’ve never particularly liked me – and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon –, but this time I really don’t get why you’re overreacting like that. I didn’t even advise him to do anything; I merely said you’d be happy to see him with or without flowers!”

“Overreacting?” Carly repeats, eyes blazing. “Because I’ve had enough of your interferences? Really?”

There has to be a misunderstanding somewhere. There has to be.

“What interferences?!”

“Remember how you used to sit with Shaun at the beginning of the year? And then you switched to partnering with Morgan, with pushing us closer together your obvious goal – no matter what flimsy excuses you tried to use as a justification instead?!”

“I’m sorry, is that not what you wanted?” Claire asks, irritation building up inside of her too now.

“Of course”, Carly retorts. “But I wanted it to happen on his terms, not yours. You had no right to take it upon yourself to decide when he was ready to take that step!”

Ah. So there is the misunderstanding.

“But I didn’t – I had his explicit consent!” Claire huffs. “Your assumptions about me and my intentions are all wrong. He’s my friend and I respect his boundaries; I would never push him into something he’s not ready for. I’m just trying to help him navigate new situations whenever he needs my help!”

Carly blinks in surprise and relaxes a little. “Oh. I didn’t know that.”

“Of course not. You don’t exactly know much about Shaun – or me, for that matter – outside of classes yet”, Claire points out. “And yes, I will continue to be there for him and help him with his social skills, whether you like it or not. I’m not going to sit back and watch him struggle just because you two are dating now!”

“That’s not what I’m asking you to do”, Carly replies, much calmer now – although still as firm. “I just want you to let us handle the rules of our relationship like we see fit, whether you find them ridiculous or not!”

“It was just an offhand comment”, Claire groans. “And it’ll probably happen again, because I know from experience that things that seem obvious to me might be the total opposite for Shaun and vice versa. I don’t even think about it before clarifying some stuff anymore – and it’s something that will become second nature to you at some point too, hopefully!”

That last sentence seems to piss off Carly all over again.

“I don’t need you to tell me how to talk to him. I’m familiar with it; my sister is autistic too – and while dating someone on the spectrum is a completely different type of relationship, I’m already very aware of how I should try to communicate with him without either of us getting frustrated. So stay out of that too!”

“Oh. Sorry, I kind of assumed—”

“I might not know you well, but you don’t know me either”, Carly says with a wry smile. “Do you even see me as a person? Or just as Shaun’s crush turned girlfriend?”

“You made it clear I should keep my distances”, Claire reminds her. The fact that all this animosity stems from a stupid misunderstanding is ridiculous, though, so she decides to try to get them to put it behind them. “Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot from the start. I don’t plan on interfering with your relationship with Shaun, but he’s my best friend and I won’t change the way I say or do things around him now just because you don’t like it. So you’re going to have to be okay with that – and I hope you will, because things will be a lot easier for Shaun if we get along. Besides, let me put it to you this way: would you rather he had no one in his life who cared enough to help him and give him some advice when he needs it?”

“That’s one way to look at it”, Carly concedes.

“Great! I just want the best for him, you know. And honestly – you two are adorable together. You seem to make each other really happy already, which is amazing”, Claire says honestly. She feels the need to add a warning, though, just in case: “But if you hurt him—”

Carly cuts her off right away. “Don’t. I know what I’m doing, and I do plan on always being honest with him about my feelings”, she says, resolute. “You don’t have to bother telling me to be cautious. I don’t need a shovel talk any more than you do.”

Thrown off balance, Claire tries to act innocent and pretend she has no idea where that last line is coming from. (She has a feeling her quickly-heating cheeks are giving her away, though.)

“What is that supposed to mean?” she mumbles.

“You and Morgan are not nearly as subtle as you seem to think you are”, Carly says pointedly, giving her a look that Claire is starting to get really used to these days.

“That bad?” she sighs.

“You should really tone down the heart eyes if you want to keep it quiet”, Carly answers, way more relaxed and amused now that it’s not her relationship they’re talking about anymore. “Though I don’t think it’d be that useful by now – I’m pretty sure that anyone who pays even just a little bit of attention figured it out already. It’s been obvious for a while.”

“Oh”, Claire mutters. She doesn’t bother explaining that they weren’t actually dating until four days ago, because what purpose would that serve?

“Anyway. I’ll see you around?” Carly says to end the conversation.

“Yeah. Of course”, Claire replies, still distracted by the fact that apparently a lot of people thought she and Morgan were dating for a while already.

Considering how oblivious she was to her crush being reciprocated until Morgan made her feelings crystal clear… it’s a bit unsettling to know that she was apparently the only one.

When they walk out of Chick ‘n’ Bread on Wednesday, Morgan seems uncharacteristically hesitant for a reason that Claire can’t quite place. She doesn’t have time to dwell on it too much, though, because a second later Morgan is grabbing her sleeve and pulling her in the opposite direction from the way to Shaun’s place.

“What’s going on?” she asks, confused.

She doesn’t get an answer. Instead, Morgan lets go of her arm and keeps walking, merely glancing over her shoulder to make sure that Claire is still following.

And Claire does quite keep following her, of course – but she also gets even more puzzled when Morgan takes a sharp turn into the alley leading to the side exit of the café-restaurant. What is happening? The last time they stepped foot there is when Morgan got Jack to leave; so why would they—

Jack.

The answer comes to Claire in a flash at the exact same moment Morgan turns around with a quiet fire in her eyes.

It’s been five weeks to the day since Jack showed up in front of Chick ‘n’ Bread; slightly less than that since Morgan confronted him with a gun, but today is the last day of the week that they’ll come to the café-restaurant. The last day of the week when Morgan can possibly do this.

“No one else will ever love you anyway”, he’d said in this exact spot five weeks ago.

Bullshit. It had always been bullshit – but now, Morgan got proof of it in the romantic sense too.

“He was trying to hurt you”, Claire murmurs, stepping into Morgan’s space so that they’re close enough to touch. “Everything he said was a lie, and he was wrong.”

Morgan’s hands come to rest at Claire’s sides, pulling their bodies flush together with unwavering determination.

“Do I look like I brought you here because I want to talk about him?” she growls, voice low – and ridiculously attractive, if the electric current that runs through Claire’s body is any indication.

“No”, Claire answers with a minute smile.

That smile doesn’t last long, though. Because it is immediately wiped away by Morgan’s insistent lips on hers.

It’s the first time they kiss since Morgan left Claire’s apartment late Saturday morning, and it’s… different. It takes Claire a second to put her finger on why exactly, but it becomes clearer and clearer the more time goes on – she feels like Morgan is trying to pick a fight, rather than enjoying the kiss for what it is.

And it’s not that hard to figure out where that comes from, even though Morgan herself might not be fully conscious of it. The ghost of Jack is still hanging in the air of this alley, whether they like it or not, and it is making Morgan fall back into old patterns that are her only frame of reference to date.

But Claire is not Jack. She’s never going to try to seize control to fulfill some messed up need for power over Morgan; she’s never going to twist and warp the notion of desire until it aligns with a fucked-up version of anger.

There’s no need for this kiss to be so harsh.

Morgan needs to understand that on her own, though. Claire has no idea just how much Jack has destroyed for her, how much damage he’s done to her understanding of love and what a relationship should feel like, but even if she did, it’s not like she could be the one to undo any of it anyway. The deep internal work will have to be done by Morgan and Morgan alone while all she can do is help and show and guide; and in their current situation, what that means is not pushing back, not escalating the fight that Morgan is looking for, even though it would be so easy – so easy – to give in to that tension that has always existed between them. It’s just not what Morgan needs right now.

So Claire lets herself be backed into the wall, her hands soft and sure as she holds Morgan’s face close, and then waits for Morgan to relax against her before she finally kisses back a little stronger. It’s a lot easier to enjoy the feeling of Morgan’s lips moving against hers once they’re both on the same page about what is currently happening.

When they do eventually break apart, chests heaving and eyes still closed, Morgan’s breath is also a little bit shaky as she rests their foreheads together, and Claire has to bite her tongue not to say any of the words currently running through her mind. She knows none of them would be received well. So, instead, she opts for the less risky option of non-verbal communication, and wraps her arms around Morgan to hold her close – and hopefully make her feel just that little bit safer. 

They stay like that for… a while. Long enough, at least, that they’ve both caught their breath by the time Morgan takes a step back and extracts herself from Claire’s embrace. They look at each other for a moment more as the residual vulnerability leaves Morgan’s eyes, replaced by a newfound resolve that adds itself as a new layer of confidence to the way Morgan carries herself, and that’s all Claire needs to see to know that Jack truly doesn’t hold any power over her anymore. That kiss served its purpose: the lingering doubts in Morgan’s minds are gone, wiped away by the definite knowledge that the days of Jack’s abuse are well and truly behind her. She is in a better place, both on a personal level and in her current romantic relationship.

The only way now is forward.

And they can step on this path together, with self-assurance and no reservations whatsoever anymore.

Fully aware of the symbolism behind her gesture, Claire extends a hand for Morgan to take. “Come on”, she murmurs. “Let’s get out of here.”

“PDA is gross”, Morgan grumbles, even as she takes the offered hand without so much as a hesitation.

Claire rolls her eyes, but it’s only just for show. “You’re going to let go the second we step foot outside of that alley anyway”, she states, knowing full well Morgan isn’t ready for anything more than this at the moment.

“Oh, definitely”, Morgan confirms. “I can only take so much lovey-dovey crap in one week.”

Claire bursts out laughing too hard to tug on Morgan’s hand properly. “Says the one who wouldn’t move from my bed last weekend”, she teases with a wide grin.

Morgan’s attempt to glare at her is half-hearted at best. “Shut up”, she retorts.

“You’re impossible”, Claire tells her, incredibly amused. She’s vaguely aware of her smile turning terribly tender at the same time, though, but it’s not like she could stop it anyway. Her heart feels too big for her chest, with how full it currently is. “But please never change.”

“Oh, not a chance”, Morgan replies brightly. “I happen to really like who I am!”

“Good. Because I really like who you are too”, Claire whispers with a soft smile, pushing onto her tiptoes to place a feather-light kiss on Morgan’s lips.

Morgan who rolls her eyes and tugs her toward the end of the alley, more so to cover the blush appearing on her cheeks than because she really wants this moment to be over already.

“You’re as nauseating as Shaun and Carly”, she sighs exasperatedly.

“And you’re the one dating me, so what does that say about you?” Claire replies without missing a beat.

“That I have to put up with it”, Morgan mutters, letting go of Claire’s hand right before they step foot in the main street again.

“That’s one way to—” Claire begins to retort, intent on continuing their banter for a little while longer, but then reality sets back in again and her eyes go wide when she hurries to check the time on her phone. “Oh god, I’m so late”, she gasps incredulously. “Shaun is going to kill me. I have to go!”

“See you tomorrow, then?” Morgan says with a tiny smirk that tells Claire she was well aware of how long they’d gotten distracted for.

“Morgan, we have two exams tomorrow”, she complains in a near-whine.

The way Morgan’s eyes suddenly go wide informs her that they’d both lost track of at least one part of their schedule during the past twenty minutes, actually – whether it’s her current one for Claire or their upcoming one for Morgan. Because that’s apparently what kissing does to them. (Oops.)

They’re so going to have to work on that.

“I’m leaving now”, she says hurriedly over her shoulder, having already whirled to walk – if not run – as fast as possible to Shaun’s place. “Bye!”

Teenagers. They’re behaving like lovesick teenagers and it’s utterly ridiculous.

How could they lose track of time so goddamn easily?!

Lea catches up with her right after she rounds the first corner on the way to Shaun’s.

“You here when my shift is already over is not a good sign”, she remarks as soon as Claire turns her head to acknowledge her presence. “But am I supposed to play coy about the reason why, or can we both just admit it’s because you were too busy making out with Morgan in a dark alley to pay attention to your surroundings?” When Claire just stares at her in shock, she adds: “I saw you walk out of it together. And, well… Your faces were kind of a dead giveaway.”

Already defeated (and slightly exasperated by the number of people who’ve figured out they’re now together over the course of only three days), Claire just heaves a bone-deep sigh. “Would you even believe me if I tried to deny it?” she still asks, although she already knows the answer.

Lea laughs frankly. “Absolutely not.”

“I figured. But we’re trying to keep it to ourselves for now, so if you could not mention it to anyone for the time being… that’d be great.”

That whole concept seems to amuse Lea a great deal.

“I mean, I can humor you if you want, but… Do you look at each other like that in school too? Because if so, I can guarantee you your whole class minus Shaun definitely figured it out a while ago already.”

“A while ago?” Claire repeats, hoping that’s not going to mean exactly what she thinks it means.

“Again: you’re not very subtle”, Lea chuckles. “Even when you guys had that weird fight for like two weeks last month, you still couldn’t stop looking at each other with adoring eyes most of the time. That’s kind of telling.”

“Um, we weren’t—” Claire replies, cutting her sentence short when she realizes she doesn’t know how to finish it. We weren’t looking at each other like that? We were certainly not together at that point, because I had just been confronted with the fact that I have a crush on Morgan then?

Why are they apparently the last two people to realize they’re dating?!

Lea ignores her interruption, though, and just keeps talking as if it didn’t happen. “It’s very nice of you to finally provide me with proof so I can confront you about your relationship knowing you won’t be able to play dumb, by the way”, she adds mischievously. “But let’s be real: with the amount of tension you two had going for you from the start, I think some of us saw it coming from a mile away!”

The only thing Claire manages to say to that is, “We just started dating on Friday.”

“Sure you did”, Lea retorts, laughing openly. That laughter ends abruptly when she realizes Claire is being completely serious, though. “Wait— Really?! Huh. You could have fooled me!”

“You and a lot of other people, apparently”, Claire mutters under her breath.

“Hmm. I wonder why”, Lea laughs, a teasing grin on her face.

Claire glares at her – or at least, attempts to – without answering, knowing she would just be digging herself a bigger hole in the process if she tried to come up with words to throw back at her, and so they walk the rest of the way to Lea and Shaun’s shared apartment in silence.

“I’m so sorry”, she apologizes to him as soon as they get there, even though she already sent him a text to warn him she’d be a good fifteen minutes late, “but I—”

“She got a bit carried away studying with Morgan and forgot to check the time”, Lea finishes in her stead, a playful gleam in her eyes as she stresses the word studying.

The teasing is eerily familiar, and Claire has to fight to keep her cheeks from heating up as the memory of Morgan pressing her against the wall fills her mind again.

Why is it so easy to make her blush? And why do people seem to find it so much fun to put her through that on a regular basis?!

Claire has no idea.

But she does have the terrible feeling Lea and Jenny would become fast friends.

Chapter Text

The rest of the week and the whole one that follows, riddled with exams, go by in a blur. The only time Claire and Morgan manage to find to themselves in the middle of it all is their usual Friday night – but even then, they spend most of it flipping through textbooks and pages of notes for some last-minute revisions, because they have no time left to lose.

Still, when it’s time for them to turn off the lights, they find themselves both on Claire’s bed this time again. They don’t talk about it, don’t even really acknowledge it besides a quick half-embarrassed glance as they struggle to settle on the narrow mattress without either of them risking a fall or ending up stuck against the wall, but it’s not like they would need words to know that they’re both on the same page about this. Is it uncomfortable? A bit, yes. Are they going to go back to sleeping apart because of this? Definitely not.

And so, it becomes a thing – a night on the same bed every Friday, limbs tangled and covers drawn over them, as they pass out from exhaustion more than they fall asleep after days of non-stop studying during the week. Jenny smirks at them when she notices that they’ve stopped bothering even bringing the air mattress into Claire’s room, but she seems to sense that proper teasing will have to wait and lets them get away with it. (For now.)

It’s only once the first wave of exams stops that they get some time to actually breathe for a moment, and without really discussing it ahead of time, they start being a little more… open about the fact that yes, they are, in fact, a couple, during their first week filled with nothing but regular classes again. It’s not much, really; the most they do is hold each other’s eyes instead of forcing themselves to look away like they usually would or sit next to each other a lot closer than they used to, but it sends waves of thrill through Claire’s body in a way that she’s hardly experienced before. (The closest she can remember was when she was sneaking around with her first girlfriend, but those adrenaline rushes had a lot more to do with fear than they did with genuine excitement – so it’s not like they can really compare to her current situation.)

It’s already a big step for Morgan, that much Claire can tell. What they’re doing is not explicit by any means but it’s something, and even though Claire quickly told her that most of their friends figured out they were dating almost instantly – she did avoid mentioning that some people thought they were dating even before they got together, though, for… reasons – it still doesn’t mean that Morgan is comfortable acknowledging it openly. And it might even be a long time before she is – but Claire is okay with that. She’s more than willing to wait for her until Morgan reaches that point in her personal journey.

And in the meantime, as they try to juggle exploring the shift in their relationship with their unyielding commitment to med school, they at least still have the tail end of their Friday nights all to themselves.

(It’s all they get, really. They haven’t allowed themselves to get lost in each other outside of those moments since their time management fail at Chick ‘n’ Bread, and with the midterms growing near as their freshman year will come to an end in hardly more than a month now, it’s all too clear to them that they’re not going to get anything more than that for the time being. Not until they mercifully reach the two months of summer holidays – not until they can finally remember what it’s like to have a life outside of the four walls of the rooms they spend all of their time in these days.)

It’s during one of those Friday nights, three weeks exactly since Morgan kissed Claire for the first time, that Morgan makes kind of a big announcement that fills Claire with nothing but happiness for her.

“I won’t be coming to Chick ‘n’ Bread on Monday”, she says without preamble as they’re packing away their notes for the night. “There’s a collegiate archery program on campus and they’re holding tryouts this week for students who’d like a shot at joining the team while already attending college.”

“Morgan!” Claire exclaims, delighted. “You’re going to take up archery again? That’s amazing!”

Even though Morgan smiles in response, her eyes are hard and resolute when she looks back at Claire. “I loved archery way before I even saw him for the first time. So I may have just lost a full year, but he’s not going to keep me from doing what I love any longer. I’ve decided to try out – and trust me when I say, I will be on that team next year.”

Claire doesn’t miss the fact that Morgan doesn’t refer to Jack by name for once, opting instead for a simple distasteful him that relegates her abuser to a somewhat impersonal entity rather than the person who took advantage of her in every way he could for three whole years. He doesn’t deserve to be someone special – someone worthy of a name – to her anymore; he’s just a part of the past, and even though the memories and the scars will never fully go away, it doesn’t mean he should get to influence her future any longer.

Claire is pretty damn sure she’s never felt as proud on someone’s behalf in her entire life until then.

She’s all the more delighted at the news because of how much she used to worry Morgan was pushing down her feelings to avoid dealing with the aftermath of Jack’s disappearance, reluctant as she was to even just mention him for the longest time, and how surprised she is now to discover that Morgan has actually walked far along the path to healing already. This is some incredible progress – especially since Morgan once said in passing, almost two months ago at this point, that the simple thought of picking up a bow again made her almost sick and nauseous where it used to be one of her greatest joys. So, to decide to try to join a collegiate team next Monday? She’s certainly come a long way in such a short amount of time.

“Are the tryouts open to the public?” Claire asks, trying to keep her tone neutral rather than hopeful just in case this is a situation she shouldn’t be inserting herself in.

Morgan considers the question for a second. “I doubt it.”

“How about to a supportive girlfriend?”

The gears finally kick into place in Morgan’s head, and the look she shoots at Claire is filled with nothing but a pure mix of surprise and wonder as she blurts another question in return. “You’d like to come?”

“Of course”, Claire says softly, the words breathed out and barely audible, as she walks over to the desk next to which Morgan has been standing since the beginning of their conversation. “Of course I want to come see you kick everyone’s ass at those tryouts! Unless this is something you need to be doing on your own, obviously – in which case you can ignore my last two questions and pretend I never asked them. But if you want me there? Then it’s an absolute no-brainer.”

“I always want you to watch me kick people’s ass”, Morgan replies with one of her trademark cocky grins, although they both have to pretend the sentence doesn’t come out sounding a little choked up.

“Monday night it is, then”, Claire whispers against Morgan’s lips as she leans in for a short, sweet kiss that has Morgan wrapping her arms around her lower back in response.

It feels a lot like a promise.

One that extends to way more than just that one evening Claire will spend watching Morgan display her skills in archery to whoever will be overseeing the tryouts.

Alex finds Claire alone in the library on Monday, soon after their last class ends. She opted to wait there while Morgan does a quick round trip to her place to grab some archery gear she brought with her when she moved to San José; there would have been little point in accompanying her all the way and back before heading to the tryouts, since Morgan’s apartment is located just past the outskirts of the campus while the sports center is almost the complete opposite way around. Besides, Claire needed to return a few books anyway.

“You here? Alone?” he says jokingly in lieu of a greeting once he’s close enough to whisper and be heard. “It’s rare to see you without your girlfriend these days!”

“It’s not going to last; I’m just waiting for her to come back from her apartment”, Claire answers absent-mindedly. “She needed to…” Wait.

Girlfriend?

Oh, that was smooth. He caught her completely off-guard, and she fell for it head first.

“I figured it would work better with you than Morgan”, Alex simply says. “Plus, I’m less likely to get my head bitten off with you too.”

“Sometimes I forget you used to be a cop”, Claire groans, a bit annoyed with herself for getting played so easily. He said the word so casually she didn’t even pay attention to it when she started answering – until it was way too late to pretend she didn’t know what he meant. “Anyway, yes. Join the ever-growing club of people who’ve called me out on it already; I’m not even surprised anymore. Especially not coming from you – I could tell you’d figured it out almost instantly.”

Alex smiles at her. “Well, you two are not quite… How should I put it—”

“Subtle?” Claire supplies dryly. “So I’ve been told.”

“Your poker face definitely needs some work”, Alex agrees, smile widening as he teases her gently.

Claire shoots him her best affronted look, but she can’t deny he’s right. She seems to be absolutely terrible at hiding her feelings whenever Morgan is involved in the equation.

“Any particular reason why you felt like calling me out on it today?” she grumbles, too curious to resist the temptation to ask.

“Well, I needed to be one hundred percent sure you two were dating and I saw an opening”, Alex answers.

“Um, why would you need to—”

“But now that I am”, Alex continues as if he didn’t hear Claire talk, “I’m going to make good use of the fact that Morgan isn’t here right now. Because doing the next part in her presence would kind of defeat its entire purpose.”

“You lost me”, Claire admits, puzzled by his slightly cryptic language.

“I have to— Look, this is going to be awkward because I’m choosing to do this for her only even though you’re both my friends, but for all her nothing-touches-me persona Morgan is a lot more vulnerable than you are beneath it all so this is the way it’s going to go”, Alex states. He then hesitates for a second. “Please don’t tell her I said that about her being vulnerable, though, because I don’t think she’d appreciate it very much”, he adds, half-joking but also half-serious.

Claire is starting to have an idea where this is going. “Are you about to tell me I’d better be ready to face your wrath if I ever break Morgan’s heart?” she asks, eyebrows raised.

“That’s the spirit, yes”, Alex confirms. “And I know you care about her so much you probably don’t need to hear anyone tell you that, but it never hurts to be extra careful, so… Think of me as the protective big brother she doesn’t have to be giving her girlfriend the shovel talk, I guess.”

Claire flinches just enough for Alex to pick up on it.

“What?” he asks, frowning.

Claire debates whether to keep quiet about Morgan’s family or not for a moment, but she eventually decides to answer honestly. “She does, actually”, she says. “Have a big brother, I mean. From what I know of him, I don’t think he’d ever care enough to be doing that for her, though, so you can totally take on that mantle. And I’m not… I don’t mind you choosing to be protective of her only right now. It’s good to know she has you in her corner if I ever do mess up.”

He considers her with thoughtful eyes. “How about you? Do you have someone in your corner if Morgan were to hurt you?”

Without having ever consciously thought about that question before, Claire still instantly knows its answer. “Jenny. She’s one of my roommates, and she’s, well… She wouldn’t just let it slide, that’s for sure.”

“Good”, Alex replies. “It makes me feel better about taking Morgan’s side – or however you want to call what I’m doing right now. I just didn’t… I couldn’t picture anyone else who would”, he adds with a pained smile.

“You’re a good friend – and surrogate big brother”, Claire says quietly. “Especially considering how much she keeps you at arm’s length. It’s… You know. Thanks on her behalf – because we both know she’s too proud to ever admit she appreciates it – for always having her back.”

Alex acknowledges the words through a beat of weighted silence, but then he changes the tone of the conversation and moves on to teasing Claire instead.

“To say that you couldn’t stand her for weeks at the beginning of the year”, he reminds her with humor in his voice. “Could you have ever imagined yourself where you are now?”

“Not in a million years”, Claire replies honestly. “If I had been told… I would have thought the person had lost their mind.”

“I’m happy for the both of you”, Alex says, switching to a serious tone again – although lighter. “You’re really great together.”

“Yeah. Yeah, we are”, Claire agrees, bashful but unfaltering as she doesn’t bother trying to hide her true thoughts from Alex.

Her phone vibrates then, signaling an incoming message from Morgan saying she’ll be waiting for her outside in a minute, and when she looks back up at Alex, he’s already understood she needs to leave now.

“That’s my cue”, she still says needlessly.

“Of course. Go get attached to your girlfriend’s hip again”, he replies jokingly in lieu of a goodbye.

She slaps him playfully on the shoulder as she moves to walk out of the library.

“Stop it”, she grumbles, although she doesn’t mind and they both know it.

“Why?” he calls out after her, his voice growing a bit louder – much to the surrounding people’s dismay – so that she can still hear him. “Because you know I’m right?”

And the truth is… yes. Yes, he is.

So Claire just keeps walking away with a smile on her face, and doesn’t even bother trying to find an answer that she knows Alex isn’t really waiting for anyway.

Finding the right building, then the right room to sign up for the tryouts, in the middle of the sports center turns out to be much less complicated than Claire feared it might. There are large signs everywhere to guide them all the way to the people in charge of the archery team, and thus they’re soon greeted by a middle-aged man with a gruff voice who appears to be a very much no-nonsense kind of person.

“Are you here for the tryouts?” he asks as they enter the room whose door was left open.

“Yes. I am”, Morgan answers.

“I’m not. I’m just the friend here for support”, Claire rushes to clarify.

The man gives them a piercing stare. “Friend”, he repeats flatly, although his eyes are sharp enough Claire is certain he knows she voluntarily omitted the ‘girl’ part of the word. “Right. Well, I don’t have an issue with your presence here – as long as you’re the kind of person who can keep their mouth shut when they’re not supposed to speak. My room, my rules. Are we clear on this?”

Claire nods once. “Yes, sir”, she replies immediately. This man’s entire aura is extremely intimidating, and she’s always been very sensitive to those kind of things.

(Morgan, of course, is as entirely unfazed by his presence as Claire could have guessed she’d be.)

“Good”, he says to acknowledge Claire’s answer before turning to Morgan. “Have you ever held a bow before?”

“Just about every day of my life since I was five until last year”, Morgan says with barely-hidden pride. “I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t know how to shoot properly.”

The man looks wholly unimpressed by Morgan’s obsessive training when she was younger. “And you stopped because?” he just asks.

Claire does her best not to wince at the loaded question, all too aware of what its true answer is, but Morgan is unperturbed as ever and rolls with the punches like she always does when she doesn’t want to let her feelings show.

“I wanted to focus on my first year of med school. I couldn’t afford any distractions until I knew for sure I had time for them without any risk of an impact on my studies.”

“Seeing as you’re currently standing in front of me, my guess is you’ve found your answer. Alright, then. My name is Mr McCall and I’ll be the one evaluating what your skills are worth”, the man – Mr McCall – says. “You’re the first person to show up – we never get many people –, so I have all the time in the world to push you to your limit.”

Claire doesn’t miss the spark that lights up in Morgan’s eyes at the blatant challenge that’s just been issued.

“I look forward to it.”

“Oh, we’ll see about that”, Mr McCall says, though he seems just a little bit impressed by the fact that he hasn’t managed to unsettle Morgan yet. “You and your supportive friend, follow me.”

(He’s definitely figured out they’re dating.

At this point, Claire isn’t even surprised anymore.)

They stop a first time at another room down the hall so Mr McCall can send two people, who look like – and probably are – older students, to handle any other potential candidates that might show up until he’s back, and then he leads them to an indoor archery range lined with targets on one end that causes Morgan’s eyes to light up as they enter. They wait there in silence, just the two of them in that wide, brightly-lit space, while he unlocks the door to an adjacent room – seemingly used to store all the equipment the archery club possesses – and walks in to go get Morgan a bow and a quiver.

(He did ask if she needed any type of protective gear, but Morgan brought her own well-worn arm guard and chest guard with her – Claire might have googled archery during the weekend so she wouldn’t be completely lost with the terminology and the rules… sue her –, so she was all set on that front.)

By the time Mr McCall comes back, Morgan has already put on both pieces of equipment with quick, precise gestures that betray just how many times she’s done the exact same thing before in her life. Fully ready, she takes the recurve bow that Mr McCall hands out to her without a word, but a curious look in her eyes informs Claire that something is… out of the ordinary, at the very least.

“A good archer doesn’t need a sight or stabilizers to have decent aim”, Mr McCall simply says in response to Morgan’s silent question, unwittingly helping Claire follow what’s happening in the process.

The words sound like a challenge.

And Claire has a feeling he’s done that entirely on purpose.

“I practiced with a handmade bow at home when I first started archery”, Morgan replies with a casual shrug and her usual self-confidence. “I know what it’s like to shoot with the bare minimum. I don’t mind.”

“Right. Well then, start at twenty yards on the large targets as a warm-up”, Mr McCall grumbles. “And let’s see if your fingers are as quick as your mouth.”

That gets the briefest smile out of Morgan before it’s wiped from her face entirely, replaced by a look of pure concentration. She goes to the corresponding line drawn on the wooden floor while Claire follows Mr McCall to the sidelines, and then the room falls entirely silent.

It doesn’t take long for Claire to realize that something is wrong. Something is wrong in the way Morgan’s face hardens when she draws an arrow from the quiver attached at her hip, and something is definitely very wrong in the way her hands start to shake as she nocks the arrow then raises the bow in front of her to draw it.

Morgan… Morgan is doubting herself all of a sudden. And Morgan never doubts herself, much less lets it show, unless something is very, very wrong.

The first arrow lands in what Claire thinks is the ‘4’ area of the target.

That, obviously, upsets Morgan even further.

Mr McCall doesn’t say anything. He just raises his eyebrows, fixing her with such a piercing stare that Claire wonders how it’s not digging a hole in the side of her face by now, and waits.

Morgan nocks a second arrow.

Her left hand is gripping the bow so tightly now, Claire can see her joints going white even from the side of the room where she’s at. It doesn’t seem to make the trembling any better.

She’s still trying to steady her entire body when a sentence finally digs its way out of Claire’s memory, getting her to suddenly realize why Morgan is doubting herself right this second and making her want to smack herself for not anticipating this was very likely to happen.

‘I realized later, much later, that he was actually destroying my abilities on purpose’, Morgan had said, on that night she opened up on Claire’s bed about what Jack had put her through for years before she finally managed to escape his clutches.

Jack had taught Morgan to doubt her archery skills, again and again for who knows how long. All because he couldn’t handle her becoming better than him through hours upon hours of hard word.

For all she had promised to stay silent on the sidelines to Mr McCall, Claire doesn’t hesitate for a second before speaking up.

“Morgan”, she calls out, her voice loud in the quiet room. She fights to keep it steady and even, unwilling to reveal anything more to Mr McCall about what’s going on than what he might have already guessed on his own by now. “You know how to do this. You do. You were an archer for years.” For years before you even met him, she means to say, but that will have to stay in the realm of things implied. “The skills are in you. So if you can’t trust your mind?” If you can’t trust it because he’s messed with it too much? If you can’t even remember what’s the right instinct and what’s not after months away from a bow because of him? “Then trust your body. It’ll know what to do.”

Morgan meets her eye for a split second across the room, just long enough for Claire to see a startled understanding start to overlay the distress and frustration that are so obviously in control of her at the moment, and then she’s angling the bow towards the ground again instead of releasing the arrow she’s been struggling with for close to a minute at this point.

Mr McCall is still silent. Claire expected him to reprimand her for interrupting the tryout, at the very least, considering the way he’s acted since they arrived, but instead he just keeps looking at Morgan with a neutral expression on his face.

Maybe Claire shouldn’t find it so surprising. Maybe she should have realized that behind his brusque manners, he actually does seem like a very perceptive person who’d understand that something much bigger than a simple tryout is playing out right now.

When Morgan raises the bow again, her eyes are closed and her hands are finally steady. She takes a few deep breaths before bringing the string to her cheek and exhaling, and then…

And then, Claire barely has time to see her eyes open again before Morgan’s fingers let go of the string.

The arrow flies way too fast, way too unexpectedly, for Claire to have any hope of following its trajectory, but when she whips her head to look at the target, she finds it exactly where Morgan was supposed to make it land all along.

Embedded almost in the exact center of the innermost yellow circle.

Ten. That’s the number of arrows left in Morgan’s quiver.

Or rather, it’s the number of arrows she hasn’t shot yet – because oh, shoot them she does. One by one, with her fingers drawing the bowstring then releasing it in one single breath each time, she sends them all flying straight into the target in front of her.

And all of them, except for one that lands just outside of the bull’s eye and into the ‘9’ area, score a 10.

The way Morgan is nocking arrow after arrow, jaw set and eyes glowing dangerously, makes this feel like some sort of revenge. Like… Like she’s on a warpath, and whatever still stands between her and her goal stopped mattering at once.

Because her goal is taking back what’s her. Her passion, her love for this sport, her ability to trust in the skills she’s spent years polishing – she wants it all back, and nothing is going to stop her now.

Claire wonders if Morgan is picturing Jack’s face instead of the perfect 10 circle she keeps shooting arrow after arrow into. If this is therapeutic in a way very few people will be able to understand in their life; if this is what she needs to strip herself of his influence on her once and for all.

Claire has a feeling it is.

When her quiver is finally empty, all twelve arrows embedded deep in the target at the end of the room, Morgan puts her bow down gently before going to retrieve them. She removes them one by one, her gestures swift and precise – almost mechanical –, and doesn’t stop until she reaches the final one. The first one. The one completely off to the side.

Morgan takes a long, hard look at that arrow before drawing it out of the target and placing it in the quiver with the others. And then it’s over.

The silence in the room is deafening as she walks back to the twenty yard line where she left the bow on the ground. They all know that what just happened was everything but a regular warm-up, but if anyone is going to acknowledge that the last five minutes truly did happen, it’ll have to be Mr McCall.

Except he doesn’t.

“You could have split one”, he just says, still calm as ever.

Morgan’s confidence is back in full force when she replies.

“I made sure I wouldn’t. Damaging equipment during a tryout is a poor selling point.”

“Cheeky, aren’t you”, Mr McCall mutters, eyes narrowed, although there’s the barest hint of a smirk playing on his lips. “Well. Let’s see what you can do from the twenty-seven yards line, then.”

“Better than one hundred and thirteen, that’s for sure”, Morgan replies as they all move back to the line in question.

And, indeed, she does. She scores one hundred and eighteen in total, to be precise.

Mr McCall still doesn’t comment on it.

Instead, he asks: “Have you ever practiced outdoor? And if you have, what distances are you comfortable with?”

“Comfortable with?” Morgan repeats. “I would say around forty; that was about the size of my backyard. I also practiced at— at someone else’s place, up to close to a hundred yards, but I’m far less consistent at these distances. Anyway – should I move over to the proper sized targets now?”

The proper sized targ—

Claire needs a second to realize that Morgan is talking about the ridiculously small targets they can barely see from where they’re currently standing.

It just doesn’t seem right. How can someone aim at a bull’s eye that is almost invisible, much less actually manage to hit it?!

She doesn’t get a demo just yet, though, because Mr McCall decides otherwise.

“Shoot from the back of the room first”, he tells Morgan. “It’s about thirty-five yards away from the targets. Let’s see what you can score from there.”

Morgan nods and walks over to the far wall, where she raises the bow and shoots all twelve arrows again. She takes just a bit more time to aim each one of them than from the two previous lines, but the added distance ends up not affecting her final score much. One hundred and sixteen in total.

“Twenty yards line again, indoor targets this time”, Mr McCall tells her once she’s retrieved her arrows. He still hasn’t made a single comment on her overall performance, and his face is unreadable as ever.

Morgan positions herself over the line and nocks the first arrow without a word, her focus fully directed at the three tiny targets she’s now supposed to shoot at, and Claire can’t help but gape, incredibly impressed, as she somehow manages to aim at the bull’s eye that’s barely even visible in the middle of the yellow area.

“How even”, Claire mumbles under her breath, eyes wide, when Morgan’s first arrow seems to land near the center of the yellow area of the uppermost target. The words earn her a glance from Mr McCall, who seems to be rather amused by her reaction, and he hands her the pair of binoculars that’s been hanging around his neck since he came out of the equipment room instead of using them himself to take a closer look at the targets.

No one else says anything, though, and Morgan empties her quiver for the fourth time that evening in complete silence save for the sound of the arrows flying through the air and into the targets. And while only two stray from the yellow area and into the red one – as far as Claire can tell even with the binoculars, because damn those targets are so small –, that seems to be enough for Morgan to be disappointed with herself.

“I’m so out of practice”, she mutters to herself once she’s done shooting, shaking her head with obvious annoyance before marching to the targets to retrieve her arrows yet again instead of paying attention to Mr McCall whose eyes have been following her intently for the past five minutes now.

Which means, unfortunately, that she doesn’t hear Mr McCall’s quiet cough that sounds like he’s almost choking on air. But Claire, on the other hand, very much does.

She doesn’t get to dwell on just what exactly it might mean, though, because within seconds he’s following Morgan to the targets and Claire is hurrying after him so she can take a closer look at the arrows too. Five of them found their way into the bull’s eyes and indeed only two ended up in a red area to score an 8 each, which means that Morgan finished with a total of one hundred and eleven that Claire finds incredibly impressive.

“Did you ever compete?” Mr McCall asks, unable to keep curiosity fully away from his voice this time.

Morgan tenses up almost imperceptibly before she answers. “Occasionally.”

“And how far did that lead you?”

“My club didn’t go beyond county competitions. That’s where I stopped.”

Mr McCall raises an eyebrow. “I’m assuming you won them.”

“As a teen, a few years in a row, yes”, Morgan confirms, more humble than Claire expected her to be about such results she could have easily boasted about. “But I was not that good as a child.”

“Hmm. With those results and your potential, I find it hard to believe that you never got noticed.”

Morgan doesn’t seem to follow. “Noticed?”

“By another coach from a team that’d advance to bigger competitions, looking to get you to join his club.”

Morgan doesn’t let it show much, but Claire can tell she’s a bit thrown off balance by Mr McCall’s statement.

“No”, she says slowly. “I was never approached by anyone.”

“Of course. Most likely, they wouldn’t have gone to you directly”, Mr McCall says, his voice just a bit more cautious now. “They would have talked to your parents first.”

Claire understands the implications of what he’s saying just a split second after Morgan does, watching her entire body go rigid and her eyes fill with cold fury as the realization quickly sets in.

Morgan’s parents never cared about her love for archery – they found it preposterous, even. And so if they were ever approached with an opportunity to get Morgan to compete at a higher level, which according to Mr McCall seems incredibly likely, all they did about it is shoot it down without ever even mentioning it to her.

In other words: they screwed her over without a care in the world.

And Morgan just realized that.

Seemingly sensing that he just opened a giant can of worms, Mr McCall tactfully changes the subject without waiting for Morgan to answer.

“But enough about the past”, he says gruffly. “What I’m interested in is what I can do with you now. Are you interested in competing indoor, outdoor, or both?”

“Both”, Morgan replies instantly. Her face is back to neutral, but Claire can tell how much it cost her to swallow down her true feelings this time.

“Good to hear. Now, if you’re willing to wait about half an hour, I can have you showing me what you can do from bigger distances today already.”

“There’s an outdoor range nearby?” Morgan asks, trying to tone down her excitement but failing spectacularly. “I’ve always preferred shooting outside.”

“Not quite”, Mr McCall answers. “The outdoor range the team practices in is in a different location and we can’t head there while I’m overseeing the tryouts – even though I have a feeling you’ll be our only candidate for tonight. But the far wall communicates with an adjacent gymnasium through a movable panel, allowing our archers to practice from distances used in outdoor competitions without having to take the wind into consideration, and I’d like to see you shoot from there today. We just need to wait for the basketball practice to be over before we can use that gymnasium.”

Morgan doesn’t even have to think about it before she knows her answer. “I’ll wait.”

“Good. In the meantime, I have a few questions for you – the first one being, how serious are you about competing?”

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean by that”, Morgan admits, frowning slightly.

“Alright. Then, Ms Reznick, allow me to be perfectly clear with you: whether you’ll join my collegiate team stopped being a question for me the moment I watched you shoot your first real arrows. Yes, you will. What I’m currently trying to assess is whether I should attempt to coach you with bigger goals in mind.”

“Bigger goals?” Morgan repeats, eyes suddenly wide.

Claire has to bite her lips to keep from grinning like an idiot, anticipating what the answer to that question is…

… And yet, still ending up stunned by Mr McCall’s next words, just as much as Morgan is.

“You put five arrows in the bull’s eye of those targets using a simple recurve bow, without any sights or stabilizers or anything to help you, and still consider yourself out of practice”, he says almost impatiently. “Yes, bigger goals. With proper coaching, you could easily reach international competitions, at least indoor – I have yet to assess what you’re worth in an outdoor setting. But I won’t put in the effort to get you there if you’re not willing to commit fully on your end as well.”

“I—” Morgan’s mouth closes, opens again, and wow that sure is the first time Claire has seen her – understandably – speechless. “I’ll… I’ll find a way to make it work with med school. I’ll do it. I’ll put in the work. My answer is yes – I want to compete at a higher level if I can.”

“Hmm”, Mr McCall says, unimpressed. “We’ll see how that holds. In the meantime, I’ll need to know your weekly schedule – at least starting this summer, if not now.”

“Of course”, Morgan replies eagerly, following him to the side of the room where she left her bag and her phone with it.

Distantly aware of the conversation going on in the background now, Claire stays in front of the targets, walking away from them backwards then closer again in a hopeless attempt to figure out how anyone could aim at something that small and somehow still manage to hit the bull’s eye. It’s… It looks impossible, and yet she saw Morgan do it with her own two eyes. How?!

She’s brought back to the present by the voice of Mr McCall, who obviously just raised it deliberately so it could reach her ears in addition to Morgan’s.

“I’m going back to my office until the gymnasium empties out. You two are welcome here to stay here in the meantime. Ms Reznick, you can train if you want; I trust you around the equipment… or you can try to teach your dumbfounded girlfriend how to hold a bow, if that’s how you’d rather spend your time instead. You have my blessing for that too.”

He leaves without waiting to see either of their reactions, but the hint of a smirk he had on his face even as his voice stayed deadpan while he was giving his instructions gives Claire the feeling he knows exactly what kind of effect his words will have on them. Electing to ignore the heat creeping up her cheeks, though, she simply asks Morgan if she should get out of the way in order for her to train some more.

“No”, Morgan answers, shaking her head. “My arm muscles are not what they used to be, and I don’t want to be struggling by the time I need to be shooting from bigger distances.”

“Is the bow that heavy?” Claire asks curiously.

Morgan looks amused by the question. “Lifting it is easy enough; it’s drawing it repeatedly that is another problem entirely. Do you want to try?”

“I… Yeah. Just to see what it feels like.”

Morgan instructs her to stand about ten yards from one of the bigger targets while she goes to get the bow for her, and within seconds Claire is listening to Morgan explain to her how to nock an arrow and draw the bow properly. After watching the gestures a few times, she feels confident enough to let Morgan hand it to her, so she takes it then positions herself to the side, raises the bow, and…

“What the—” she can’t help but let out when she realizes just how much strength is needed to draw the bow properly.

It makes Morgan laugh. “I did warn you”, she says with a teasing grin.

“You make it look so easy”, Claire replies, blurting out her thoughts. “How do you even aim with this thing— Never mind, my arm is giving up on me.” She clumsily releases the arrow that miraculously still lands in the target, although so far from the center into the white area it’s almost a miss, and hands the bow back over to Morgan who isn’t bothering to hide her ever-growing laughter at Claire’s struggles. “Definitely not something I’d ever have the patience to get good at”, she says honestly. “I’ll leave that to you.”

“I’ve seen kids shoot better than that on their first ever lesson”, Morgan teases her, her tone mocking though not in a mean way.

“Shut up”, Claire grumbles, the phantom feeling of drawing the bow still lingering in her arms. “You can shoot well enough for the both of us anyway. I mean… You really weren’t kidding when you said you were good at archery, huh?”

“I—” Morgan falters in a very uncharacteristic manner. “I knew I was good”, she says quietly, looking a bit dazed now. “But I didn’t know I was that good.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Claire asks carefully. “About Jack and… and your parents?”

She expects Morgan to say no, she really does. But instead, Morgan surprises her by letting her guard down and revealing her true thoughts and feelings.

“There’s nothing more to say about Jack”, Morgan grumbles with distaste. “Shooting my gun at the range helped me fix my aim months ago; I just… needed to remember that I also know damn well how to draw a bow, no matter what he used to tell me. My parents, though…” She clenches her jaw with anger. “I wish I could at least be surprised they would do this to me, but I’m not. They wouldn’t have put in the effort required for me to build a career as a junior athlete.”

Claire doesn’t need to ask more questions about why; Morgan keeps talking on her own. About their lack of support from the start, that Claire was already aware of, then about their rules about which competitions she could attend – not on Sundays, Morgan, a sport cannot possibly be more important than church –, and finally about their complete disinterest even when they did drive her to a competition on the rare occasions it happened.

And Morgan is pissed off right now, she’s so obviously pissed off, but underneath it all there’s also an undercurrent of hurt and sadness that she can’t fully hide and it properly breaks Claire’s heart. No wonder she was so surprised Claire wanted to come to the tryouts with her – she’d never had anyone who paid attention to, much less cared about, her passion for archery before! (Well, save for Jack, but he was an adept of the sport too… and it’s not like that turned out any better still.)

“I think I knew, deep down”, Morgan continues to rant through clenched teeth. “It’s why I never watched too many high-level competitions on TV or on the Internet – I knew I had the potential to be that good, but they wouldn’t let me. The… The one time I was watching a junior international competition, I remember thinking out loud that I could almost do this, I could almost score that high, and the only thing my mom had to say to that was a patronizing ‘don’t be silly, Morgan’ that I can still hear to this day.”

“Asshole”, Claire mutters, unable to help herself.

It makes Morgan snort with laughter, at least. “Pretty much.”

After a few seconds of silence, Claire bumps their shoulders together. “Hey”, she says softly. “You’re getting your chance now. It’s not too late.”

“It would seem so”, Morgan replies quietly, but she doesn’t seem fully convinced it’s happening – like she’s waiting for something to ruin the opportunity Mr McCall just handed out to her, because it feels too good to be true.

“Don’t forget me when you’re famous”, Claire jokes to get her out of her head.

“Fame in the world of archery is a very relative thing”, Morgan says amusedly in return. “I’ll try not to forget you when I’m a renowned surgeon, though.”

“You are literally impossible”, Claire sighs, rolling her eyes at Morgan’s cockiness. But she prefers her like that rather than angry or miserable, so she’s fine with just playing along this time.

(It must have been so frustrating for Morgan, to be kept from competing properly in the sport that’s been her obsession her entire life. Claire feels for her so much.)

They stay quiet for a moment after that, both lost in their thoughts; then, seeing as they have nothing better to do until Mr McCall comes back, they go sit on the floor with their backs against the floor and begin quizzing each other on a few subjects they’re broached in class during the previous week. They pass the time this way for almost half an hour – right until Mr McCall appears in the doorway and Morgan immediately leaps to her feet.

“I see you did not overexert yourself”, he comments as he looks around the room. “That’s good.”

Claire gets the feeling leaving them alone was yet another test – one that Morgan decidedly did not fail.

“I lost most of my endurance”, Morgan simply says by way of explanation, and Mr McCall grunts in agreement.

“I’ll get you a proper bow this time”, he tells her after picking up the very simple one she’d been shooting with so far from the floor.

He disappears in the equipment room, then reappears half a minute later with a much more complex-looking bow in his hand. Morgan takes it without a word, a look of concentration falling over her features, and she stands to the side while Mr McCall goes to open the panel in the wall. (The mechanism is so well hidden hat Claire only figures out which panel is movable once she actually does see it move.)

“The room is yours”, Mr McCall says with an almost theatrical hand gesture, taking them both by surprise as this is not something they were expecting from him, once the well-lit gymnasium appears on the other side of the wall.

“What distance should I shoot from?” Morgan asks while stepping inside.

“What distance do they shoot from at the Olympics?”

Morgan doesn’t hesitate before she answers. “Seventy-seven yards.”

“Then you already have your answer. You shoot from the other side of the room.”

“Already? No intermediate distances?”

Mr McCall raises an eyebrow. “Is that going to be a problem?”

This is a challenge, yet another one. He’s been issuing challenge after challenge since they arrived and Morgan has been rising to the occasion every time, so he keeps pushing – and he’ll probably keep doing so until he starts to see her limits.

Claire is pretty sure that makes him the ideal coach to turn Morgan into the best archer she can ever possibly be.

“No. That’s perfectly fine with me”, Morgan answers without faltering.

Then she walks to the other side of the gymnasium without a look back.

Claire moves to follow her, but Mr McCall stops her immediately. “You stay in the range with me”, he tells her. “It’s easier to see the results from here, trust me.”

And so they stay, and they wait, and then they watch.

Morgan’s arrows whiz past so fast Claire is helpless to see them before they find their way into the target, and soon she gives up on even trying to just watch the end result through Mr McCall’s binoculars again. Three arrows find their way into the yellow area – none of them in the bull’s eye –, five others end up in the red area, and the four remaining one all land in the blue area, constituting a score nowhere near Morgan’s earlier results but that Claire still finds incredibly impressive. The target may be something like three times larger than the ridiculously tiny ones used for smaller distances, but seventy-seven yards is also ridiculously far away and Morgan’s performance is not terrible by any means.

At least, in her opinion.

Because Morgan clearly disagrees.

“Well, this is just embarrassing”, she mutters as she walks past Claire and Mr McCall to retrieve her arrows.

“It’s not that bad”, Claire tries to argue, but that only gets Morgan to scowl even more.

“Inside, with no wind? It’s terrible”, she retorts.

“It’s nothing regular practice from this distance can’t fix”, Mr McCall calmly cuts in. “You did say you weren’t used to it in the first place and a year without shooting certainly did not help – but you seem to be a perfectionist, and I appreciate that in a person.”

Claire has to refrain from snorting with laughter. Calling Morgan a perfectionist almost feels like an understatement, considering her never-ending quest for flawlessness in pretty much everything she takes an interest in.

Morgan doesn’t say anything in return, though, simply retrieving her arrows without a word, and the next time she speaks is when she hands the bow and the quiver back to Mr McCall.

“So when is my first practice?”

“Next Monday”, he replies evenly. “I’m busy holding the tryouts this week and you need to do some conditioning before you can be any good for a full hour with a bow in your hand.”

Morgan nods in response. “Alright. Then I’ll see you next Monday.”

“I’m serious about the conditioning”, Mr McCall calls after her as she and Claire begin to walk away, his voice clear despite not raising it or even just turning around.

“Oh believe me, I know”, Morgan replies the exact same way before they step out into the corridor and head towards the building’s exit door.

They walk in silence for a little while once they’re outside, Claire waiting for Morgan to sort through all the thoughts and feelings this tryout sure did bring to the surface. It takes a few minutes, but in the end, the first sentence that makes it past Morgan’s lips is: “I might get a shot at international competitions.”

And she doesn’t say it with her usual loud, in your face kind of bragging voice she likes to use when she achieves something and wants everyone to hear about it – she’s different as she speaks, quieter; more vulnerable and genuine too. She just seems… in awe.

“How does that feel?” Claire asks.

Morgan considers the question for a second. “Surreal”, she answers with raw honesty. “I was absolutely not expecting to get that from tonight’s tryouts.”

“Surprise”, Claire whispers, smiling.

Morgan smiles too, but after a few beats pass she does admit that she’s not as confident about this as she’d like to be. “I… I hope I can actually make it.”

Claire leans into her side as they walk and takes her hand so she can squeeze it once. “Of course you can”, she says, full of conviction. “You never let anything stand between you and your dreams. You fight for them, no matter how long it takes, and this won’t be any different – especially since I don’t think anything could ever ruin archery for you again. You have all the time in the world to become the best you can possibly be.”

“Yeah”, Morgan breathes out. “Yeah. Hopefully.”

She seems convinced at last, but there’s also a hint of anxiety in her voice that Claire doesn’t quite understand and yet elects to pretend to miss for the time being. Whatever is still making Morgan doubt her skills, she clearly doesn’t want to talk about it now.

And that’s okay.

They have time to figure it out and work through it somewhere along the way.

Chapter Text

The three weeks of classes and the week of midterms they have left before the summer holidays start go by extremely slowly and extremely fast at the same time. It’s kind of a slow torture; they’re so looking forward to having some time to themselves again and those days are coming nearer and nearer, but in the meantime they still have to work as hard as they can and it’s – to put it mildly – simply exhausting.

Some few things of note do happen during those weeks, though.

The first one is an announcement from Ruby to Claire and all their other roommates, just one week or so after Claire went to see Morgan’s tryout. “I’m moving out”, she tells them one night while they’re all eating dinner. “My little sister is going to college next year too, and it’s way simpler for us to just find a small apartment to move in together. I’ll leave somewhere around mid-July, I think.”

Everyone’s response to this news is some kind of variation of “oh, okay, I hope you find a good place to live with your sister”, but none of them are particularly upset. Ruby was a major pain in all of their asses at the beginning of the year when she wouldn’t stop playing her music too loud most nights, after all, and while things did get better over time, she still never grew close to any of them during the entire year. So they’re not particularly sad to see her go.

Claire even sees a major opening there.

“I’m taking your room”, she says almost immediately.

Ellen gives her a confused look. “You know it’s about the same size as your current one, right?”

“Yeah, but the configuration is different”, Claire says with what aims to be a nonchalant shrug. “I like it better.”

It’s not a lie, not really. She does like the configuration better – but only for one very specific reason: namely, that its almost square shape means she’ll have enough space to fit in a double bed without making something in the room basically inaccessible like it would happen in her current one. And judging by Jenny’s barely-concealed smirk, her ulterior motive is apparently clear as day to anyone who knows about her relationship with Morgan.

Not that she’s called out on it, though, surprisingly. Even when it’s just the two of them later on in the evening, Jenny doesn’t say a word about her about wanting a bigger bed to share with Morgan, and so Claire foolishly assumes Jenny decided to refrain from teasing her for once in her life.

She should have known better, of course.

Jenny was just waiting to cross paths with Morgan in the apartment – which happens the weekend right before midterms start – before she’d bring up the fact that they’re going to be one roommate short very soon.

“Did Claire tell you we’ll have an empty room here starting mid-July?” she starts by saying, innocently enough that no one expects what’s coming next.

“Yes”, Morgan replies absent-mindedly, eyes glued to the index cards she’s holding in one hand.

(It’s Friday night and they only have two days left to get ready for their midterms, but Jenny insisted they needed to take a break and offered to cook for them on the one condition that they get out of Claire’s room to eat and clear their mind for a few minutes. And while both of them reluctantly agreed… it still didn’t stop Morgan from finding a loophole in Jenny’s terms and bringing her index cards out with her, of course.)

“Thought so”, Jenny comments. Then, without a warning, she adds— “You interested?”

Claire kind of chokes on her food. “Jenny!” she exclaims, aiming for a threatening or at least warning tone but failing miserably on account of struggling to breathe and nearly coughing her lungs out.

Morgan, on the other hand, is much harder to throw off balance. “No”, she replies without even glancing up at Jenny. “I need my own space, so moving in with anyone is out of the question.”

“Is that why you two are here literally every week rather than at your place?” Jenny pushes, amused.

“We’re here because Morgan’s apartment is ridiculously small and not made to accommodate two people at all”, Claire retorts, having recovered enough to speak without coughing too hard. “Also because she happens to own a gun and that thing needs to stay as far away from me as possible!”

Jenny’s eyebrows shoot up. “You can shoot a gun?” she asks Morgan, curious.

“Not quite as well as a bow, but yes”, Morgan confirms, finally tearing her eyes away from her index cards. “It’s not that hard to learn, really.”

“She’s an archer”, Claire helpfully adds to give Jenny some context. “And a damn good one at that.”

“Well aren’t you full of surprises”, Jenny muses, lost in her thoughts for a moment, before a teasing grin appears on her face again. “Okay then, miss multi-talented overachiever, you’re keeping your apartment and we’ll keep seeing you here during the weekends. As long as you two behave, seeing as Claire’s new room will be right next to mine and the walls are thin, it’s all fine by me!”

Claire narrowly avoids having a mouthful of food go down the wrong pipe again. “You’re the one who needs to behave”, she threatens Jenny, “or I’m throwing you out for the evening next Friday!”

“Uh-huh, sure, but also— Why next Friday specifically?”

“Because I’ve invited all my friends here to celebrate surviving our first year of college after our last day of midterms”, Claire reveals. “And you’re the only one of our roommates who’ll be in the apartment that day, seeing as all the others already have commitments of their own to go out partying with their friends, and I was fine with that and I was going to make it a surprise because I know you’ve been dying to meet them, but if you’re going to spend the whole evening—”

“I’ll behave”, Jenny quickly promises. “I swear. I’ll behave. Oh my god, I can’t believe I’m finally going to meet the people I’ve been hearing about for a year. I’m just— Oh my god. I can’t wait.”

“Are you sure you can manage to hold back at least half of your teasing for an entire evening?” Claire insists, just to make Jenny sweat a little. She would never have the heart to throw her out anyway, but a little scare never hurt anyone, right?

“Yes. Yup. I totally can. Smack me over the head if I mess up when your friends are here or something, alright? I won’t mind. It’s just— I’m so excited!”

“Yes, you’ve made that abundantly clear already”, Morgan cuts in dryly. “But Claire is really looking forward to this whole thing – so if you mess it up for her, I can promise you I will find a way to make you regret it.”

“Well, that’s a protective girlfriend you have here”, Jenny tells Claire, smiling. “Good to know. But also, you know me – even though I love messing with you, I can totally chill when I need to.”

That’s true. For all of Jenny’s teasing, she also knows exactly where Claire’s true boundaries are and has never once even come close to crossing one of them. She just likes embarrassing Claire an inordinate amount is all – and that can even be considered one of the foundations of their friendship at this point, to be honest.

“But while we’re on the topic of being protective of Claire”, Jenny continues, turning back to Morgan, “just know that I’ll be the one making you regret it if you ever screw her over and break her heart. Okay? Yes? Good. Subject closed on both ends. So now, let’s enjoy what little is left of this meal before you two disappear in Claire’s room again.”

And for the next five minutes, that’s exactly what they do.

An agonizing week of midterms later, Claire’s mood is somewhere between utter exhaustion and elation that she somehow did survive her first year of med school while she waits for all her friends to join her at her bus stop. Morgan is already there with her, of course, Alex arrived something like two minutes ago, and so now they’re only waiting for Shaun to guide Carly and Lea there to complete their little group. (Claire had invited Jared as well, in part out of courtesy but also because she really would have liked having him there with everyone, but he already had a prior commitment and thus politely declined.)

“Can you believe it’s finally over?” Claire breathes out, exhausted, the idea of two whole upcoming months without classes still surreal to her.

“It’s not truly over until we get our results, though”, Alex reminds her.

Claire groans. “Can we not talk about that tonight? We still haven’t gotten our grades for some group projects either and I don’t need to freak out about that while I’m trying to enjoy celebrating the return of our freedom with my friends.”

“Are you still worried about the joint project?” Morgan asks exasperatedly. “I told you, we did more than fine.”

“I think so too, but Pr Lim and Pr Melendez were so… punctilious with everything we were saying during our oral presentation and their following questions that—”

Morgan rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “We were the best group, of course they would try to push us to our limits. We’ve had that conversation three times already – and you know Shaun even agrees with me on this.”

“Speaking of Shaun”, Alex cuts in, not-so-subtly redirecting the conversation to a safer topic. “He’s here.”

Indeed, when Claire turns around, she sees Shaun coming towards them with Carly at his side and Lea not far behind. (He’s the only one who knew where both their midterms were taking place, so Claire had asked him to go get them both and bring them to the bus stop with him. He happily obliged.) Everyone greets each other when they arrive, Carly with a shy smile and Lea with more energy than Claire thought could be possible to still have after a whole week of midterms, and after that, it doesn’t take long for the bus to arrive and start driving them all to their destination for the evening.

(Claire isn’t ashamed to admit that she spends most of that time taking a power nap against Morgan’s shoulder. It’s either that, or she doesn’t know how she’s going to survive the rest of the evening.)

“Remind me why we’re doing this right after our last exams again?” Alex grumbles in between two yawns while they’re waiting for the elevator to get them to the third floor and Claire’s apartment, too tired to even envision walking up the stairs instead.

“Because someone, namely you, has a plane to catch tomorrow and won’t be available again for two whole weeks after tonight?” Morgan retorts sarcastically.

It makes Lea laugh quietly at Alex. “She got you there.”

“Yeah, I walked right into that one”, Alex admits as they all step into the elevator. “Just forgive my old age if I end up falling asleep at some point – I don’t have as much endurance as when I was twenty anymore.”

“Spoken like an actual grandpa”, Lea says with a snort.

“You don’t get to judge”, Claire grumbles, stifling a yawn of her own. “No one but you could still be that bubbly after a whole week of exams anyway.”

Or, well… Apart from Jenny, at least. Jenny who left campus alone because her exams ended an hour earlier than theirs, and who is currently almost hopping up and down with excitement as she waits for them all in front of the apartment’s open door.

“I stand corrected”, Claire groans. “No one but you two could still have as much energy left right now. Anyway— Everyone, meet my roommate, Jenny. Jenny, this is Alex, Lea, Shaun who you saw once in passing at the beginning of the year, and Carly.”

“Hello”, Shaun says.

“Nice to finally meet you”, Alex greets Jenny, while Carly just does a little hand wave.

As for Lea, her face breaks into a wide grin. “I have a feeling we’ll get along great”, she tells Jenny.

“That’s what I’m afraid of”, Claire mutters under her breath.

This time, Lea laughs frankly. “I see your girlfriend’s grumpy attitude has started to rub off on you… But to tell you the truth, it suits her better than you.”

“Why are you invited again?” Morgan retorts, glaring.

“I’m starting to wonder the same thing”, Claire grumbles – but deep down, she actually loves being surrounded be people who support her relationship with Morgan one hundred percent and enjoy teasing her about it. She knows all of it is good-natured, and for all she complains about Lea and Jenny poking fun at them, it has more to do with worrying something will eventually cross Morgan’s boundaries than anything else.

Meanwhile, in the middle of all the bickering going on, everyone in their little group settles in the living room and begins discussing what kind of take-out to get. It takes them ten good minutes to all figure out what they want to order, of course, since they keep getting side-tracked by one thing or another, but they do finally manage to be done with it after a while – and once that’s out of the way, they begin setting up the board games. Because that’s what they planned for the evening: eating take-out, playing board games, chilling with friends, and forgetting all about college for the first time in months. It seemed a great idea to everyone as Claire invited them, and honestly it still does now – most of them are not big fans of partying, and anything requiring more than the bare minimum of brain power would be insurmountable at the moment.

“Don’t let Claire and Morgan pair up”, Jenny immediately warns everyone. “I made that mistake once and I’m still regretting it to this day.”

“I’m too tired to have any competition left in me”, Claire says honestly.

“I’m not”, Morgan immediately chimes in.

“Of course you’re not”, Lea comments, laughing.

Claire stops bothering to participate in the verbal sparring after that while the two start bickering again, and instead snuggles up against Morgan on the couch while she waits for their food to arrive. It the most comfortable she’s been in a while, and she honestly can’t help but marvel at the fact that she can do that now without Morgan tensing up or even batting an eye whatsoever. What a long way they’ve come since Morgan flinched away from any contact on instinct…

She lets the conversations go on without her for a while, only listening to them as she enjoys the simple comfort of being surrounded by people she knows she can trust and rely on when she was deprived of that for so long in her life. It’s something she always knew she needed, and it’s what she was hoping to find when she left her mom behind and headed to med school – but even in her wildest dreams, she never thought she would get so much, especially in just a single year. So she just listens, content, as several of her friends who met mere minutes ago start to interact with each other: Jenny and Alex are chatting about how relieved they are that the year has finally come to an end, the exact opposite of Morgan and Shaun who are still stuck talking about med school-related stuff because apparently neither of them can ever stop themselves, while Carly and Lea…

Carly and Lea are having an animated discussion about the similarities and differences between biological and computer viruses – something Claire absolutely does not have the mental capacity to focus on at the moment without ending up with a massive headache for sure, but hey! Good for them if they still do!

What finally ends up interrupting them all is the sound of the delivery guy ringing the doorbell, which has Claire yawning and stretching before she gets up with Jenny to go open the door and free him from the seven bags he’s struggling to carry. Once he’s gone and the door is closed again, matching everyone with their order is a quick and easy task, and so it’s not long before Claire can sit back down and enjoy her own food as well.

Twenty minutes of eating in relative silence later, they all seem to have had some energy put back into them, and so soon enough they feel ready to start playing in addition to talking – which is the only thing they’ve done since they arrived so far.

“How about we start with a simple card game that doesn’t require too much brain power?” Jenny suggests after taking a quick look at everyone. “War, maybe?”

“How about we choose something that’s not based on pure luck?” Morgan immediately retorts.

Jenny shakes her head, both at herself and at Morgan. “Should have seen that one coming”, she says in a sigh. “Fine. Anyone up for a game of Scrabble?”

“Kind of impossible with seven people”, Lea points out. “It maxes out at four players, and we can’t even pair up with an uneven number.”

“I’ll keep score!” Shaun offers, apparently more interested in that than in the game itself.

Lea nods. “Well, okay. Then it could work.”

“If Claire and Morgan don’t play together, though”, Jenny insists. “None of you know what I’m saving you from right now, but trust me when I say you don’t want to find out!”

Morgan, of course, takes the opportunity to gloat. “You just don’t want us together because you know we’d be unbeatable.”

“I will neither confirm nor deny that statement, but also, it won’t hurt either of you two lovebirds to not be together for five minutes”, Jenny replies, grinning as Morgan suddenly looks daggers at her. “So, anyway – Claire, come here please. I’m choosing you as my partner.”

“Fine by me, but I’m not sure I’ll be of much help”, Claire warns her as she regretfully – Morgan is so warm – slides from the couch and scoots to the side until she’s seated next to Jenny. “I’m lucky my brain still remembers basic English at this point, but anything beyond that…”

Jenny waves her concerns away. “Leave the subtleties of English to me, remember? I got this.” Then, leaning to the side so she can whisper something only Claire will be able to hear, she adds: “Besides, don’t act like you won’t enjoy the opportunity to just watch Morgan get all competitive and focused and passionate about this. I know you find it hot.”

“Jenny!” Claire hisses, hoping she’s not blushing as bright red as her quickly heating cheeks make her fear.

“I know, I know, I’m supposed to behave”, Jenny says with a shameless shrug and a wide smile, “but this is so much fun and you make it too easy.”

“Okay”, Alex says a bit too loudly to redirect everyone’s attention away from Claire and Jenny even though he can’t hear what they’re saying to each other, “then how about the rest of us?”

“Morgan?” Carly asks hesitantly a second later, looking a bit lost now that Shaun took himself out of the game. “How about we play together? It’d bring back memories.”

It takes a confused Claire five whole seconds to make sense of that last statement – she really is that exhausted –, but then she remembers that Carly and Morgan used to be lab partners in their introduction to pharmaceutics class at the beginning of the semester and it finally clicks. Besides, it’s the first time Carly has met both Alex and Lea, so it makes sense she’d try to pair up with a familiar face.

“Sure. Are you ready to destroy them all?” Morgan asks, motioning for Carly to come sit next to her on the couch.

“If we win, that’ll be great, but I like Scrabble”, Carly simply replies. “I’ll enjoy playing regardless.”

“You should have paired up with me”, Lea teases Morgan even as she moves over to Alex’s spot around the coffee table. “I would have brought some competition to the table as well.”

Morgan instantly scoffs at the idea. “Like I ever would pair up with you.”

“I knew you’d say that, grump”, Lea replies with a wink. “It’s too late anyway. Bring it on!”

They begin playing while Morgan and Lea keep bickering some more – again –, but Claire isn’t worried about it escalating too much like she would have been a few months ago. Morgan would never admit it in a million years, but Claire has a feeling she’s grown to actually appreciate their back-and-forth – Lea teases her, Morgan snaps back, then Lea keeps going and Morgan turns bitchy, which only makes Lea laughs, and so on. It’s become an outlet of sorts, with Lea a willing victim to Morgan’s icy retorts.

In any case, the bickering goes on, and the first two rounds of the game go rather smoothly.

But then Claire and Jenny come up with a bingo that scores them almost a hundred points at once, and that marks the real beginning of the competition.

“Ninety-six!” Shaun gleefully exclaims after calculating the worth of their word with the different premium squares involved.

“That was a lucky draw”, Morgan grumbles, looking up at the letters they put on the board and narrowing her eyes at them.

“Have fun catching up with that”, Jenny just shoots back, grinning wickedly.

“Oh trust me, I will”, Morgan retorts, going back to the game with renewed ardor.

And she does, in fact, catch up with their score a few rounds later, helped by a well-positioned four-letter word that gives her and Carly’s score quite a nice boost. It’s very well played, Claire notes, and while, until this great move, she was still mostly letting Jenny play for the two of them, the triumphant look Morgan throws them then makes her own competitiveness flare up and she suddenly becomes a lot more invested in trying to win over Morgan and Carly.

“Game on”, she says under her breath.

That makes Jenny glance at her and snicker quietly, because of course Jenny would see right through her, but Claire can’t help it. Competing with Morgan is thrilling the same way arguing with her used to be – except more enjoyable, because the emotion it brings her nowadays is certainly not anger or annoyance –, and Claire cannot resist rising to the bait. Absolutely cannot.

(She has a feeling they’ll be even more competitive in class next year, pushing each other relentlessly and always trying to stay just that little bit ahead, once they’ve had the chance to explore their relationship further…)

For the time being, as the game goes on, the obvious happens: tension keeps rising, and rising again, between Claire and Morgan as both teams stay neck and neck until almost the very end, passing each other only to fall behind again one or two rounds later. It seems to greatly amuse both Lea and Jenny, but Claire elects to ignore their barely-hidden smirks in favor of focusing on the board in front of her.

Finally, once they reach the final round as all the remaining tiles have been picked up, Jenny and Claire – who are playing first – get rid of as many letters as they can in the best spot they manage to find.

“Can you beat that?” Claire challenges Morgan once Shaun has calculated their word’s worth, feeling comfortable about the margin between their current scores.

That’s when the most unexpected turnaround happens.

“I don’t know about their team”, Lea says with calculated casualness, though she’s unable to hold back a giant grin that betrays her, “but Alex and I certainly can.”

Four pair of eyes immediately turn to look at her, shock written all over their faces as it’d been a while since anyone even remembered to pay attention to the third team’s score. It’s not that Lea and Alex – well, Lea, really, since Alex has his eyes closed and was half-napping during most of the game – were catastrophically far behind, but they’d never gotten ahead yet… so no one considered them a legitimate threat.

Until, well…

Until it was too late.

“So many fancy words”, Lea says, shaking her head dramatically as she picks up two tiles from her rack, “when all you really need to win at Scrabble are a couple letters, a bit of strategy and the perfect spot to place them at just the right time to ruin everyone else’s efforts. It’s that easy, I swear. Such a shame you were all too busy fighting each other to realize I’d been hoarding an ‘S’ and waiting to get an ‘A’ so I could put them both right here” – Lea places the tiles on the board as she speaks – “and take you all out in one go!” She smiles and laughs wickedly as they all gape, knowing the result of Shaun’s calculations way before he announces it. “Oh my god, you should see your faces right now. They’re absolute gold.”

Claire, who can’t stop looking at the board feeling nothing but pure shock, opens and closes her mouth a few times before she manages to get any words out. “I sure didn’t see that one coming”, she eventually breathes out with a mix of frustration and amazement.

“Me neither”, Morgan adds through gritted teeth, eyes flitting between the board and her rack. “Shit.”

Jenny bursts out laughing. “Oh my god, your reactions are so damn funny I can’t even feel disappointed we lost. Well played, Lea, well played! This will be a game to remember for sure.”

“It was an amazing move”, Carly concurs. “What a well-deserved win.”

“Never underestimate the underdog”, Lea says, grinning.

Morgan still keeps stubbornly searching for a way to beat her score for five good minutes, a deep scowl on her face, but eventually she does have to realize it’s just not possible and admit defeat. She manages to tie Claire’s score exactly, though, which is quite a feat in itself, but better than that she just can’t find.

“How about we take a bit of a break while some people come to terms with the final results, and we’ll resume once the tensions are running a bit less high?” Jenny suggests once the game is over, unwilling to jump into another one right away. Besides, judging by the look on her face, Morgan definitely needs to swallow her defeat and cool down a bit.

“I’m voting yes; I think we all need to stretch our legs too. Oh and, by the way, the bathroom is over there, if anyone needs it”, Claire says, pointing to it with her hand.

She gets up along with everyone else, stretching and pushing back her hair that has turned into messy curls, but once no one is paying much attention to her anymore, she discreetly tugs on Morgan’s hand to lead her to her room. Her friends are amazing and this evening has turned into exactly what she hoped it would be, but she’s also officially done with her first year of med school and she kind of feels like celebrating that with her girlfriend and her girlfriend only at some point.

“I can’t believe I lost to Lea”, Morgan mutters once the door closes behind them. “Out of everyone—”

She’s cut off by Claire’s lips on hers.

The only thing that shows she wasn’t expecting it is the small surprised gasp that she lets out, but then her brain catches up with what’s happening and she kisses Claire back eagerly – all thoughts of Lea and Scrabble are discarded for the time being.

This was inevitable, really. Tension had been building between them during the entire game, adding itself to the frustration of being unable to have any time to themselves for weeks prior, and Claire just couldn’t take it anymore. Why should they have to put themselves through any additional unnecessary wait when they could just do this, right here and right now?

God, getting lost in a kiss with Morgan is something she’s been waiting to do again for over a month at this point. And sure, now that the summer holidays are finally upon them, they’ll have so many opportunities to forget about the outside world for a while, but to be honest she couldn’t find it in herself to wait any longer and—

“Hey, horny lovebirds!” Jenny shouts from the living room. “Quit making out and get your asses back out here, we’re all waiting for you!”

Startled, Claire pulls back slightly and finds herself pretty much pinning Morgan against the door, their fingers intertwined and gripping tightly although Claire has no memory of even reaching for Morgan’s hands in the first place, with absolutely no notion of how much time has passed since they started making out. Jenny… Jenny definitely just called them out with terrifying accuracy.

“Your roommate has the worst timing”, Morgan whisper-groans, her breathing hard and her eyes darkened even as annoyance also sets in.

(It’s a testament to how distracted she is that she doesn’t even seem bothered by Jenny putting them on the spot like that, instead just commenting on how frustrated she is about the interruption.)

“I know”, Claire sighs, struggling to think about anything other than the feeling of Morgan’s body against hers. “She does have a point, though”, she reluctantly admits. “We do need to get back to the others.”

It takes a lot of willpower, but she finally manages to step away and take a deep breath to clear her head a little.

Friends. Their friends are out there. Additional making out will have to wait.

“Two months”, she rationalizes. “We have two whole months ahead of us. Okay. Come on, let’s go.”

Biting her lip and looking away to resist the temptation of just another kiss, she drags her mind away from that corner and waits for Morgan to step aside so she can pull the door open and face the teasing that she’s sure is bound to come.

And, indeed, as several pairs of incredibly amused eyes watch them walk back into the living room, Lea can’t help but make the first comment already.

“I’m ready to bet you fully lost track of time”, she says, chuckling. “We’ve all been back here for five good minutes, you know.”

“Oh”, Claire mumbles as she and Morgan sit down on the couch, on the exact same spot they occupied at the beginning of the evening since it was graciously left for them again. She can’t really defend herself, though, considering they did fully lose track of time and all her energy is directed towards trying not to blush furiously.

Morgan, on the other hand, is a lot harder to unsettle. “And what about it?” she asks defiantly, almost… almost smugly.

“Oh, good, we’re past the point where you’d try to pretend that’s not what just happened!” Lea exclaims. And then, because now she feels like maybe she won’t get murdered for it, she turns towards Alex and Jenny and adds: “Can we talk about how long it took them to figure out they had feelings for each other?! I swear, watching them not deal with it became torture for a while!”

“Tell me about it”, Alex replies. “I’m in class with them most of the day – trust me, I know exactly what you’re talking about!”

Carly, apparently, can’t help but join in. “Even I could tell there was something going on”, she says.

“It was some next-level denial”, Jenny sighs, nodding. “They danced around each other for so long, it was getting exasperating!”

Shaun, bless his heart, doesn’t seem to care at all about what Claire and Morgan did or did not figure out, and stays mercifully silent. He’s known they’re dating for about two weeks now, after Claire realized that all of their friends but him knew because they’d all figured it out through various cues and consequently told him, but all he had to say about it was: “Oh. I didn’t know you liked her.”

(Claire had felt compelled to reply: “For the longest time, me neither.”

And that had been the end of that very simple conversation.)

“The tension”, Lea keeps going. “The amount of unresolved tension they had going on before they finally got together!”

“And let’s not even mention the heart eyes they were looking at each other with!” Jenny adds.

“Are you about done?” Morgan snaps, sending death glares to all of them in turn.

“I feel like we all suffered on our own for months, watching the incredible amount of mutual pining you two had going on”, Lea immediately retorts. “But we can share with other people who’ve had the same experience for once, so just let us have this!”

“Here’s an idea”, Claire says – whines, really, but who can blame her? “Why don’t you all do that when Morgan and I are not here?”

“Awww, but where would be the fun in that?” Jenny immediately replies.

“Also”, Claire continues, ignoring Jenny’s interruption (so much for promising to behave), “we were not that obvious!”

It’s Alex who deals the final blow.

“Claire”, he says gently. “You may think that, but literally everyone saw it coming a mile away. I mean, even some professors did!”

“Wh— What?!” Claire sputters, mouth agape in shock. That’s… What?!

“You’d better explain that one. Fast”, Morgan demands, deadly serious.

“Ooooh, yes please. That sounds juicy; I wanna know too”, Jenny says, while Lea simply leans forward, eager to hear that particular story.

Alex laughs, but he happily obliges. “It’s not that juicy, really. It’s just that I ended up walking not far behind Prs Lim and Melendez in a corridor once, and it was mostly empty so I could hear what they were saying… I think it was the day they explained that joint project they made you all do, and you had to tell them who you’d be working with or something?”

“Oh, yes, Shaun told me about that project”, Carly interjects. “Prs Lim and Melendez always have the craziest ideas – although as far as I know, they hadn’t come up with that one yet. It must have been so interesting, trying to mix two different subjects like that! But also… Two of the most demanding professors grading one single assignment together? It’s giving me anxiety just thinking about it!”

“I didn’t envy you guys”, Alex agrees. “But anyway, I think they didn’t realize I could overhear them, because they were talking pretty openly about, well… You two. Pr Melendez was kind of gloating about how right he’d been about forcing you two to pair up at the beginning of the year, because, and I quote from memory as best I can: ‘look at them now, not only are they willingly working together, but they also seem to have genuinely become friends – they’ve even started sitting next to each other in class!’. And Pr Lim sounded both exasperated and amused when she replied ‘I think it’s gone a little further than that by now’, which I guess had him really confused because she had to clarify ‘they’re dating, Neil!’. So… Yeah, that’s a thing that happened.”

“I— But—” Claire says haltingly. “But that was— We weren’t— They gave us this group project assignment maybe… a week, at most, after I figured out I had a crush on Morgan!”

“‘Figured out’, sure you did”, Jenny snickers quietly.

“We were far from dating at that point!” Claire exclaims, ignoring her. Morgan stays silent, apparently just trying to process it all.

Alex shrugs helplessly. “To be fair, you guys were kind of dating long before you actually put two and two together and added kissing on top of everything else; you just… didn’t realize that’s what you were doing. So I can totally see where Pr Lim was coming from.”

“Nice to know absolutely everyone has an opinion on Claire and I’s private lives”, Morgan says scathingly. “Now may I remind you we’re supposed to play board games, not discuss how and when we started dating?!”

Everyone is wise enough to realize she’s reached the threshold of how much teasing she’ll tolerate and back off, but Lea still does pout and complain. “What a shame, I liked embarrassing story time!” Something clicks in her mind a second later, though, because she suddenly adds: “Oh but wait, it doesn’t actually have to end just now though! There’s another couple here who can bear the brunt of it for a second. Hey Carly, do you know the story of how Shaun went to ask you out?”

Intrigued, Carly turns to look at Lea and tilts her head. “You mean besides showing up at my door on a Saturday morning with flowers that he handed to me without a word so I had to guess what was happening?”

“Well, that’s what he ended up doing, but did he ever mention what his original plan was?”

“Not that I can think of, no. But now I have to say I’m curious.”

“Okay, here comes”, Lea says cheerfully. “So, for context, I had taken Shaun out for drinks on Friday so he could unwind after a meeting with Glassy – Pr Glassman, for those who aren’t familiar with him –, and he was a bit… tipsy once we got back. Well, it turns out that Shaun is a bit bolder than usual once he has a few drinks in his system, because he’d been freaking out about asking you out all week, but that night he was ready to go riiiiight away. Right away meaning at nearly one in the morning, while looking slightly disheveled after our evening at the bar and clearly smelling like he’d drunk a bit too much alcohol. The only way I managed to convince him to wait until a decent time later in the morning was by arguing he wouldn’t find any flower shop open in the middle of the night – and even then, it was a struggle!”

“I was excited”, Shaun simply says by way of explanation.

“Awww”, Carly says, leaning against him as she chuckles at his antics. “You’re sweet. I do appreciate that you didn’t wake me up in the middle of the night, though.”

Claire smiles too, amused by the story that she didn’t know and relieved to see the attention shift away from Morgan and her. She does wonder if Carly knows what Shaun’s meeting with Pr Glassman that Friday was about, though – if she knows Shaun ended up standing his ground against him till the end and never went to see his father who died hardly more than a week later –, but it’s not her place to either mention it or ask about it, so she stays quiet like she should.

Alex rolls his eyes, acting dramatic on purpose. “Ah, young people in love!”

“Shut up, sleepy bitter grandpa”, Lea retorts, grinning.

“Excuse me, young lady”, he gasps, falsely offended, “but I’m barely old enough to be your dad!”

“At the risk of repeating myself: aren’t we supposed to play board games??” Morgan chimes in.

“At the risk of disappointing you”, Lea answers, “I won at Scrabble, so I’m the one who gets to decide which game we play next – and you’re not going to like it, because I want to pick a game that is solely based on luck. No offense, but we all deserve a break from the amount of tension that rises between you and Claire when you guys get ridiculously competitive.” She winks. “Anyway, I brought a Game of the Goose. So get ready for that.”

Morgan glares at her. “Seriously?!”

Lea just grins.

“Yup!”

The second half of the evening goes in quite a similar way to the first, with all of them chatting – including some more verbal sparring between Morgan and Lea (or Jenny… or both) on occasion – while they play, and really, this game night turned out to be everything Claire had hoped it would be. It’s the perfect ending to what has otherwise been quite a harrowing first year of med school, and it makes her envision the future a bit more serenely.

Before she can start (well, continue, really) to worry about how she’ll possibly survive another year like this one, though, Carly ends up unwittingly reassuring her somewhere near the end of the evening.

“If it helps, the second year is slightly less insane and somewhat more relaxed than what you’ve been through so far”, she says to Alex who’s begun lamenting how hard it was for him to adapt to being a student after spending fifteen years in the police force. “They’re pushing you particularly hard during the first year so that those who can’t handle it will quit immediately, but then the pressure does quiet down a bit. I mean, the midterms stay as demanding and they increase the workload again year after year, of course, but in the beginning you’ll have more time to breathe than you did so far.”

“Oh, yes. It helps”, Alex breathes out in relief, and Claire honestly feels that in her bones.

“Good for you guys”, Jenny comments. “Because, no offense, but you all kind of look like death right now. With the unsurprising exception of Morgan, maybe.”

 “To be fair, I think I was doing even worse than them a year ago”, Carly says. “I wish someone had told me there was some respite waiting for me then too.”

Before Morgan can express her displeasure at the idea of anyone or anything taking it easy on her – and, by extension, them –, which is a comment she seems to be within an inch of making if the scowl on her face is any indication, Claire turns her head slightly to whisper in her ear.

“Don’t you want to have as much additional training time for archery as you can get?”

Morgan considers it for a second before she has to admit that Claire has a point.

“Hmm, yes. I hadn’t thought of it like that, but you’re right.”

“I know”, Claire replies, smiling as she presses a quick kiss to Morgan’s cheek.

It’s a gamble, considering how uncomfortable Morgan is with PDA in general, but surprisingly, it slips by apparently unnoticed. (Whether that’s due to wider boundaries or just everyone’s sleepiness at that point remains to be seen, but Claire decides that’s a question for another day.)

They keep on playing for a bit less than an hour after that, Morgan getting frustrated every time she doesn’t win even in games that are purely or partially based on luck, but by the time the clock is nearing midnight, everyone’s eyes are drooping and they’re clearly ready for some well-earned and much-needed sleep. The last bus to go back to the surroundings to the campus is leaving soon anyway, so it’s not like they could have kept it up any longer even if they’d wanted to.

The goodbyes are quick, everyone too eager to crash into bed to make them last, and soon enough Claire and Morgan end up alone in the apartment with Jenny, who disappeared into her room almost immediately after the others left.

“Two weeks”, Morgan grumbles as she sends Claire’s single bed a withering look. “Two more weeks of this to take.”

“You could always sleep on the air mattress again”, Claire jokes through a yawn.

Morgan throws her a half-hearted glare. “Like you’d like that any more than I would!”

“Fair”, Claire admits. “Now please, come here and stop talking. Or else I can’t guarantee I won’t be asleep before we switch the lights off.”

“And I wouldn’t even get a good night kiss?” Morgan asks teasingly, even as she climbs into bed next to Claire who rolls her eyes playfully and messily pulls her in for a terribly sleepy kiss.

“Satisfied?” she mumbles as she lets her eyelids shut her off from the world at last.

She never hears the answer if she gets one.

She’s fast asleep in seconds.

Chapter Text

Adjusting to a completely different rhythm of life now that the classes have ended is a little less easy than Claire had thought it would be, at least for the first few days. She’d gotten used to having a well-structured daily and weekly routine, and losing that is a bit strange at first – especially since the change in schedule doesn’t feel as temporary as it does during smaller breaks.

During the first week, she spends her time trying to figure out the best way to juggle her regular student job, the additional summer job she found as a waitress in a nearby restaurant, some studying as always since she wants to keep everything fresh in her mind until the next school year starts, sleeping a decent amount of time every night again at last, her volunteering work at the shelter as usual, and exploring her relationship with Morgan. It’s… not so easy at first, but step by step she does finally find a way to stay on top of everything.

“How is it that, even on holidays, we barely manage to see each other?” she still groans on Friday evening, when she lets Morgan into her room for their designated ‘them’ time they made sure they’d keep no matter that.

“You work, I practice, and our schedules don’t line up well at all”, Morgan replies. “It sucks, but there’s not much we can do about it.”

“I know”, Claire sighs. “It doesn’t mean that I like it.”

She steps forward to wrap her arms around Morgan and hug her tight, and while Morgan seems startled by the gesture at first, she quickly moves past it and returns Claire’s embrace.

“Someone missed me”, Morgan teases a few seconds later once it’s clear that Claire doesn’t intend to let her go just yet, and it’s more of a way to feel a little bit less thrown by the intimacy of the moment than anything else.

“Do you want to pretend that you didn’t?” Claire retorts, shaking her head with a mix of amusement and exasperation as she moves it away from Morgan’s shoulder to look up at her.

“No”, Morgan admits without much resistance as she holds Claire’s gaze for a second before leaning down and kissing her softly.

And what’s amazing, this time, what’s different from every other kiss they’ve shared to date, is that there is no rush. There’s no ‘we need to talk about this’, no ‘we should really be studying instead of making out’, not even an ‘our friends are in the other room and we’ll need to walk back out in a minute or two’. It’s just them, free of any external pressure, and there’s nothing they need to do during the entire evening other than spend time with each other. And that, of course, feels amazing.

It’s also a problem for a hot second, though, because when they finally break apart, they both seem to realize at the exact same time that they have no idea what to do during an entire evening together without the need to study thrown into the mix. They’ve simply never been in a similar situation before – at least not while dating, and certainly not without a plan to play board games to fall back on.

“So”, Claire begins awkwardly, although she has no idea where she’s trying to go with this.

“Oh, don’t expect me to lead the way right now. I have no idea how a relationship with a decent human being is supposed to look like”, Morgan says bluntly.

“I don’t really know how long-term works either”, Claire admits quietly. If Morgan isn’t shying away from this conversation, then they might as well both be honest about what their starting point looks like.

“You didn’t date much in high school?” Morgan asks curiously.

Claire sighs and goes to sit cross-legged on her bed so she can play with the edge of the sheets. They’ve never really discussed this before, and while it’s not uncomfortable per se, she still needs something to do with her hands right now.

“If we take into account the entirety of middle school and high school, I’ve had a few boyfriends as well as two girlfriends”, she says as Morgan joins her on the bed. “But I never expected any of these relationships to last.”

“Because you were too young?”

“I didn’t really think about it like that – I don’t think many people do at that age. I did, however, know that I wanted to move far away from my mom once I went to college. So I kind of saw my relationships as falling into two possible categories: either ‘let’s be honest, that requires more effort than it’s worth’, which would lead to a break-up in a matter of weeks or even days, or ‘okay, this will be nice while it lasts’. But even the rare ones that spanned a few months… I was never really serious about it. Besides, meeting my mom, even by accident, had a tendency to make people run the other way – not that I could fault them for that –, so it’s not like I could have ever fully opened up anyway.”

“By accident?” Morgan repeats, clearly curious again.

“It happened once and it was a mortifying experience”, Claire groans, the memory still a bit too vivid to her liking.

“Am I allowed to know the details?”

Claire grabs a pillow behind her so she can hide her reddening face in it. “It was the most embarrassing moment of my life”, she mumbles as the scene replays before her eyes against her will. “Tied with that one time I was caught stealing in a supermarket… Huh, and now that I think about it, both instances were due to my mom’s habit of disappearing for days at a time. How unsurprising.”

“That answer really did not go where I expected it to”, Morgan says, slightly bewildered.

“Yeah, well, welcome to my childhood”, Claire mutters, raising her head to glance at Morgan before burying her face in the pillow again. “So uh, that one time I accidentally introduced my mom to someone I was dating… Here’s the thing: it was my first year of high school, I’d been with my first girlfriend for a few weeks, and around that time my mom used to sleep at who knows which man’s place more nights than she’d spend in the trailer where we still lived at this point. And when she did come back for the night, it was always extremely late, so one day I thought – hey! Instead of always sneaking around with Emma, since neither of us was out and she was extremely scared of anyone seeing us kissing because she was sure her parents would react badly if they were to know about it… Why don’t we just go back to my place? Then we won’t have to worry about being caught for once!”

“Oh. I have a feeling I know where this is going”, Morgan says quietly.

“Yes you do. Long story short, of course that day my mom decided to come home at something like 6:30pm”, Claire sighs. “And— And maybe Emma and I had gotten a bit carried away because we were emboldened by a clearly very misplaced sense of privacy for once – since, you know, it was a trailer and there was really only one room –, but uh…” She closes her eyes tightly, even though her entire face is still shielded by the pillow because there’s just no way she’d manage to tell this story while looking Morgan in the eye, and lets out the next sentence in one single breath of air. “My mom walked in when we both had our hands up each other’s shirt.”

Morgan lets out a startled laugh. “Well I guess Saint Claire was not too shy as a teenager, huh?”

“You’re the one who decided to give me that ridiculous nickname of your own accord at the beginning of the year. I never even tried to pretend it was warranted”, Claire retorts, pushing down a corner of the pillow to glare at Morgan.

“That’s true”, Morgan concedes. “What did your mom say?”

“Word for word, because trust me I can still hear them, ‘well, at least someone here is getting some, I guess’. And Emma and I just stayed there, completely frozen, until my mom walked back out of the trailer after going through the cupboards to find herself some alcohol without so much as glancing our way again. It was mortifying. We couldn’t look at each other for days after that, and the next time we talked Emma simply broke up with me – which I already knew she would do. I’m pretty sure she flat-out denied, even to herself, her attraction to girls for over a year after that before she started to come to terms with it again. It was… It’s not exactly my fondest high school memory.”

“And how did it go for you?”

Claire shrugs. “My mom and I never mentioned that it happened, thankfully, so there isn’t much more to say. I mean, it saved me the trouble of figuring out how to come out to her, I guess? It’s a good thing that, while she has a lot – a lot – of flaws, being homophobic is at least not one of them.”

Morgan pulls a face. “Yeah. This… This would have gone very differently with my family.”

“That sucks”, Claire says quietly. She lets a few beats of silence pass as Morgan swallows hard and looks away, but then she feels compelled to ask: “Are you ever going to tell them?”

“There are a lot of things I’m going to tell them one day”, Morgan replies through her teeth, jaw set and eyes blazing. “That day just isn’t close yet.”

“I get it. Functional families, am I right?” Claire sighs, a sad smile on her face.

They share a look of understanding that lingers for a little while, until Morgan shakes her head and changes the subject entirely as a twinkle of mischief appears in her eyes.

“Anyway, I don’t want to talk about my parents right now. Let’s go back to the part where you were making out with a girl… But if that girl was me right now, of course.”

Claire bursts out laughing. “Was that supposed to be a pick-up line? Because if so, it’s terrible!”

“No it wasn’t”, Morgan answers, grinning as she leans forward and pushes Claire back on the bed. “Just in case you’ve forgotten, I’ve already picked you up.”

“You’re terrible at flirting”, Claire chuckles, but Morgan is also terribly close now and half-lying on top of her and wait a second— straddling her—

“Is it working though?” Morgan asks, her voice low, and okay. Okay, fine. Maybe Claire can’t align two coherent thoughts anymore right this second – but can you fault her?!

So instead of answering with words again, she just sneaks a hand around Morgan’s neck and pulls her down to kiss her.

(This. This is why she was awaiting the summer holidays so eagerly.

It’d been a while since she’d felt that carefree.)

“Hey, do you think I could come see you train during the week?” Claire asks the next morning, while they’re in the kitchen making breakfast. “That’s the only way I can think of for us to spend more time together during the holidays, since our schedules are really that mismatched.”

They’d drawn their timetables to each other the previous evening, once they were (mostly) done making out like the teenagers they kind of still are, and the result once they’d compared them had been rather bleak: apart from their Friday evenings, all they could get otherwise were a few hours here and there at best. Claire had consequently spent close to an hour after Morgan had fallen asleep mentally trying to improve that result, and going to some of Morgan’s archery practices with her had been the only viable option she’d managed to find.

“I’ll ask Mr McCall”, Morgan replies without missing a beat, “but I don’t see why not. As long as you don’t talk to me while I shoot, I think he won’t have a problem with it.” But then, a second later, she turns to look at Claire with a frown on her face. “Won’t that be a waste of time for you, though?”

“I’ll bring my notes with me. I’m not going to study any better alone in my room than over there anyway, so if I go with you, we can at least make good use of some of our free time before and after your training sessions!”

“Okay.” Morgan nods. “That’s your call.”

And that’s how they end up at Chick ‘n’ Bread the next Tuesday evening, meeting each other to eat a light dinner there before Morgan heads to practice at 8pm.

“I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I kind of missed this place last week”, Morgan admits as they sit down.

Claire knows the feeling. Chick ‘n’ Bread, for all its loud music and its ridiculous name, has been such a constant in their life from the moment they first started talking to each other until the end of the school year that it felt weird to not meet there regularly anymore.

“To think that you disliked it so much at first”, she retorts, smiling. “I knew it’d grow on you eventually.”

Morgan scoffs. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

Lea pops up at this exact moment, almost like she’d been waiting for the perfect segue into her entrance. (Claire isn’t one hundred percent sure she didn’t.) “Did I grow on you?” she asks with a giant grin.

“Absolutely not”, Morgan asserts with a falsely sweet smile. “You’re the one thing I certainly did not miss about this place.”

“I knew she’d come to love me”, Lea mock-whispers to Claire, completely unfazed – probably because she can tell as well as Claire does that there’s no malice behind Morgan’s savage retorts anymore. The venom that filled them at the beginning of the year began gradually disappearing after the night Jack showed up and Jenny helped her out, and it’s been completely absent for a few weeks now. “Anyway, are you two going to come here regularly even during the holidays? Please tell me you will; I need something to save me from the boredom of my shifts. Working here almost full-time until college starts again is going to be the death of my mind, I swear.”

“You knew what you were getting yourself into”, Morgan points out with no trace of compassion whatsoever.

“Yeah, but I’m also a broke college student in need of money. Your order; the usual?”

“That’d be great”, Claire answers. “And yes, we should be here twice a week – on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.” Those are the two days their schedules match well enough that it’s worth it for Claire to go with Morgan to her archery training sessions.

“You two are my saviors”, Lea tells them. “And your food will be ready as soon as it humanly can!”

“She’s insufferable”, Morgan grumbles as Lea begins to walk away, loud enough to make sure she’s being overheard.

Which, of course, gets Lea to shoot back a “and you love it!” over her shoulder with an impossibly wide grin.

Claire shakes her head and very deliberately doesn’t get involved in their weird dynamic.

They’re all well past the point where they would have needed her to.

It hits Claire halfway through their meal that this entire evening kind of feels like a date. Sure, they’re dressed as casually as usual, and sure, they’re at Chick ‘n’ Bread where they’ve spent countless evenings at the exact same table during the past year, but this time it’s different – they’re not here to study; they’re just here to spend some time together. And so, if Claire feels like staring at Morgan’s ridiculously beautiful face for most of that time? Well— She can do just that without having to rein it in for whatever reason.

(Lea lets out a teasing “welcome to the honeymoon phase, and also you two are gross” when she brings them their food, but even Morgan doesn’t bother to respond to that… except if throwing a semi-annoyed glare at her counts, of course.)

The best part about their evening kind of feeling like a date, though? It’s that it doesn’t feel like a date at all at the same time. There’s no awkwardness, no trying to impress each other, no struggling to find a proper topic to discuss – it’s just them. They tell each other about their day without even needing to be prompted, Claire asks for a crash course on more advanced archery terminology she didn’t manage to find through google without knowing enough about the sport already, they laugh or share knowing smiles here and there because they have their own well-established language by now, and it just feels so natural that Claire suddenly understands exactly what Alex meant when he said they’d been dating long before they actually got together.

(No wonder she couldn’t stop comparing Jared with Morgan that one evening at the restaurant…)

Their dinner wasn’t meant to last long, though, and so soon enough they’re out on the street, walking to the sports center where Mr McCall will be waiting for Morgan in less than half an hour. It’s a beautiful summer day, the perfect weather to be out in light clothes without too much heat that’d turn the air suffocating, and after maybe five minutes outside Claire decides that now is as good a time as any to take a gamble and let her hand slip into Morgan’s. Just in case that has a chance of not eliciting a reaction for once.

She slowly moves to intertwine their fingers, making sure she’s giving Morgan ample time to snatch her hand back if she wants to, but surprisingly—

“You know I can feel you do that, right?” Morgan asks dryly, startling Claire who expected a physical reaction rather than a verbal one.

Still, she can work with that. “Of course”, she answers innocently.

Morgan grumbles something unintelligible in response, but she does let her hold her hand the rest of the way to the sports center.

It takes Claire all of her self-control not to grin like a fool the entire time it takes them to get there.

Claire spends the first half of Morgan’s practice alternating between watching her shoot and looking down at the biochemistry notes she’s put in her lap, all of it mostly in silence since the only voice that occasionally sounds in the room is Mr McCall’s when he has a comment to make about Morgan’s posture.

About an hour in, he gives her a fifteen-minute break to rest her arms, since she hasn’t yet built back all the muscles she’d need to handle two hours of uninterrupted practice, and Morgan comes over to Claire as soon as she’s put her bow down.

“Impressed?” she immediately asks with a slightly smug, slightly proud, very Morgan-like grin.

“Just as much as I was during your tryout, yes”, Claire replies softly, and she really does mean it. “You’re incredible at this.”

“I know”, Morgan says, still grinning.

Claire snorts. “On the other hand, modesty is so not your strongest suit – and I don’t think it will ever be. Anyway, do you want to go over some biochemistry with me right now or should I put this binder down until you resume your practice?”

“Hmm, biochemistry sounds like a good idea. Go ahead and quiz me on the harder topics.”

Claire happily obliges, then answers when Morgan throws a trick question her way in return, and soon enough that turns into an unforgiving back-and-forth as they both try to find something the other one might have forgotten since their last exams. By the time Mr McCall comes back into the room, they’re tied at one single failure each, and they keep going even as Morgan starts putting her chest and arm guards back on – because of course they managed to get competitive even about something so trivial. So now, they both want the other one to mess up one question in order to declare themselves the winner for the day, and it seems they both have a hard time making that happen.

As soon as Morgan raises her bow and gets ready to shoot again, though, Claire shuts up to let her practice properly. They’ll just have to pick this back up when the training session officially ends, she supposes.

Except…

“Oh, don’t let me interrupt this”, Mr McCall says, looking over at Claire for a moment. “By all means, keep going. It’ll teach Ms Reznick to deal with distractions as she shoots, which is not a bad thing at all.”

“Oh, uh— O— Alright”, Claire stammers, surprised by this turn of events. “Then, Morgan, how about you recite the entire glycolysis, including the molecules’ formulae and the enzymes’ names?”

“If that was supposed to be a challenge, it’s not a good one”, Morgan retorts, raising her bow as she speaks. “It starts with a molecule of glucose, of course, which is then phosphorylated into glucose-6-phosphate by the hexokinase using a molecule of ATP…”

She goes on to recite the entire thing flawlessly, all the while shooting three arrows into what is undoubtedly the yellow area of the tiny targets (although Claire has a feeling that all of them are, in fact, specifically in the bull’s eye).

Ten minutes of no one messing up and Morgan managing quite easily to shoot and answer complex biochemistry questions at the same time later, Mr McCall must have started to get bored, because he suddenly decides to insert himself into the situation.

“Here’s a completely different question for a change”, he tells Morgan. “Have you set your eyes on any particular competition yet?”

“There’s a local competition in a nearby town next week”, Morgan answers, trying not to sound too hopeful as she nocks an arrow.

“And what would you gain from participating in that?” Mr McCall retorts with barely-concealed irony. “A bigger ego as you win it all?”

Claire uses a cough to disguise a snort that she doesn’t quite manage to hold back. She knew Mr McCall would be the kind of person who wouldn’t let Morgan get away with anything, but it’s still incredible to witness Morgan having no idea how to react to being called out like that.

“I have a better idea”, Mr McCall continues evenly while Morgan draws her bow. He stops after that, and Claire wonders why until he starts speaking again – he was apparently waiting for the exact moment Morgan would start to release her arrow. “A USAT Qualifier Series Event will be held in Los Angeles three weeks from now.”

Morgan’s arrow veers wildly off course as she messes up her release, eventually embedding itself in the blue area of the target.

“As I thought, you only work incredibly well through those science questions because they are not distracting enough”, Mr McCall deadpans. “You still have work to do in this department.”

“I—”

Morgan stops, swallows, and blinks a few times instead of saying anything more, her mouth hanging open in shock while Mr McCall keeps looking at her with an impassive face.

“Yes?” he just says, raising a questioning eyebrow, and Claire has a feeling he sure does love coming up with new ways to throw Morgan off balance every time he can.

“You want my first competition in almost two years to be at a qualifier series event?!” Morgan finally asks, eyes still wide as she stares at him dubiously.

“I was under the impression you liked challenges and competition, Ms Reznick”, Mr McCall answers calmly. “Or was I mistaken in my initial assessment of your personality? Did I overestimate you?”

“No, I— I do, of course, but I didn’t expect…” Morgan trails off for a moment, just a few seconds as she finally pulls herself together, and then she starts to approach the situation from a completely different – and much more Morgan-like – angle. “Would I be competing indoor or outdoor?”

“Both.”

Morgan frowns at Mr McCall. “I haven’t made enough progress outdoor to have a fighting chance at such a high-level event.”

“I’m well aware. But while competing indoor will let you objectively evaluate your skills a lot better than the small competitions your participated in in your life so far ever could, I believe that competing outdoor is just as important for you – it will hopefully be an important lesson in humility regarding how much you still do have to learn, as well as give you that much more drive to get better in the upcoming months. Besides, seeing as you thrive under pressure, I do not see the point of putting you in situations where you wouldn’t feel any. Now, weren’t you supposed to be training rather than talking? Or at the very least, doing both at the same time?”

Morgan immediately nocks an arrow while a look of utter concentration appears on her face.

“Of course”, she says, releasing it with perfect aim this time. “I have a competition in three weeks. I need to get ready.”

They have their first real fight, if it can be called that, that Friday evening.

It starts innocently enough, as soon as Morgan arrives at Claire’s apartment that day; but things escalate quickly in the span of a single minute.

“Did you see? We finally got our missing grades”, Morgan says in lieu of a greeting. “And just for the record – I told you we’d aced that group project with Shaun!”

“I saw”, Claire says in a sigh, closing the front door and heading back to her room with Morgan on her heels. To be precise, she saw that a little over an hour ago when she came back from work, and while she’d kind of been expecting to lose her perfect GPA after the second semester’s midterms because she was nowhere near ready enough for them, it still stung to get the undeniable confirmation.

Morgan gives her an odd look after that sigh. “Perfect grades are supposed to make you happy”, she remarks.

“But that’s the thing”, Claire groans. “I got some perfect grades, yes, but I also got some that aren’t. So I lost my perfect GPA.”

“Oh.” Morgan appears sympathetic for a split second, but then that quickly morphs into an excited and rather self-satisfied smile. “Well, I didn’t. So I guess that means I win!”

In hindsight, there were some incredibly more mature ways for Claire to react than what ends up making it past her lips. But she’s been trying to fight the downcast feeling that filled her upon seeing her results for the better part of an hour at this point, she’s tired from having to juggle studying with two jobs during the entire week, she’s spent the last of her energy tidying up her room because she’s supposed to move her stuff into what was formerly Ruby’s room tomorrow evening, and the fact that Morgan seems to only see those results as a competition she won rather than trying to empathize with her is the last straw.

“Of course you did”, Claire snaps, her voice definitely too loud. “We’re not exactly on equal playing fields to begin with. I’d love to have financial support from my parents and have many extra hours to study during the weekends because I don’t need to work – and live with four roommates – to pay for my studies, but that’s just not the kind of life that I have. So do me a favor and stop trying to act like these results make you any better than me, because that’s really not helping right now!”

Morgan freezes, and for a long time, Claire is too busy trying to tame her anger that is finding an easy target in her girlfriend right now – when what she’s really angry at is how unfair the world is – to understand why. So they just stand there, facing each other, until Morgan finally breaks the loaded silence by stepping forward and past Claire to walk right back out of the room.

It kind of brings Claire back to the day Morgan kissed her for the first time, when she immediately tried to exit the room that time too, and oh, no – she’s getting really tired of Morgan attempting to walk away from difficult conversations.

“Don’t—” she starts to say, but then she spins around to put a hand on Morgan’s shoulder and hopefully stop her from going any farther, and things suddenly get a lot more explosive.

Because Morgan wrenches her body away from Claire’s hand the second she feels its weight on her shoulder.

And when she next speaks, her voice is so cold that Claire feels it as sharply as she would have a physical slap.

“Don’t touch me”, Morgan hisses.

Claire pulls her hand back while her brain doesn’t manage to compute what is happening just yet, and a second later Morgan is gone.

This… is not exactly how Claire had pictured this evening going.

Still, it did. And they’re going to have to deal with it now.

She doesn’t try to go after Morgan right away, though. She has a feeling it would do more harm than good.

She needs to understand what just happened first.

So she goes to sit on her bed, grabs a pillow to squeeze and bury her face into, and mentally replays the last two minutes in her mind.

It doesn’t take long for her to identify the first issue.

She screamed at Morgan. She screamed at Morgan. And okay, maybe scream isn’t exactly the right way to describe it, but she did raise her voice unlike anything she’s ever done before – and Morgan didn’t take it well.

But… of course Morgan didn’t take it well. Because, aside from the fact that she had every right not to like it in the first place, Claire suddenly realizes that the last person who used to talk to her like that was probably Jack.

And, sure, they’ve had heated exchanges before – at the beginning of the year, it was even as if they couldn’t find another way to speak to each other. But those days, just as much as the many times they’ve argued (sometimes quite loudly) since then, had one major difference: none of it felt personal. They were arguing because they disliked each other, or later on because they disagreed about how to handle a group project for instance; it was annoyance or frustration getting the better of them, but it wasn’t personal. It was a completely different situation to Claire taking out her anger on her girlfriend.

And then, of course, by trying to reach out physically, she just made the situation ten times worse.

She doesn’t even want to think about what must have been going on through Morgan’s mind at that exact moment; if she could feel the ghost of Jack’s touch on her, the way he’d probably go after her the exact same way after an argument only to end up hitting her repeatedly.

Claire feels nauseated just from having to push away the thought.

She needs to talk to Morgan. She needs to find her, and apologize.

But how, though? She knows sending a text to ask where she is would be pointless; Morgan would most probably ignore it, if she even saw it anytime soon to begin with.

…

The bus stop.

She needs to go to the bus stop.

Morgan isn’t at the bus stop.

Claire maybe perhaps possibly starts to panic a little bit.

Where would she go?! Or did a bus get there already? Claire isn’t entirely sure how much time has passed since the end of their one-sided argument.

In a desperate attempt to figure out where Morgan might be, she decides to start searching all the neighboring streets as soon as she whirls away from the bus stop, just in case, and that’s where she ends up finding her, five minutes later – on what is, Claire realizes with a jolt, the bench where Morgan helped her deal with her mom’s sudden reappearance all those months ago.

If Morgan notices her approaching, though, she doesn’t acknowledge it in any way. Even when Claire sits down next to her, albeit on the other end of the bench so she leaves as much room between them as she possibly can, Morgan keeps looking straight ahead.

For a long time, a really long time, neither of them says anything.

Claire isn’t exactly sure where to start, or what she intends to say after an initial apology that she doesn’t even know how to phrase. Because she wants to get this right, but she doesn’t know how.

“I took my anger out on you”, she eventually says, the words coming out slow and careful. “I should have never done that – I should never have screamed at you, especially for something that isn’t your fault. And I’m sorry.” She sighs, fiddles with her hands for a moment, then follows her apology with: “Screaming is just about the only thing that’d get through to my mom on her bad days, and sometimes on her good ones as well. So that’s kind of become a default reaction for me, especially whenever I feel like I need to defend…”

She doesn’t quite know how to finish her sentence – ‘myself’ doesn’t fit well enough for what she wants to convey –, but somehow Morgan still knows exactly what she’s trying to say.

“Your worth?” Morgan guesses, turning her head to look at Claire for the first time since she sat down on the bench – and Claire must look as surprised as she feels at hearing her thoughts said out loud, because a wry smile suddenly appears on Morgan’s face. “I had a bit of time to think. Besides— You’re not the only one who had to learn to read people.”

Claire huffs out a laugh. “I forget that sometimes”, she admits. “But… yes. My mom used to tell me that I’d never be good at anything, that I shouldn’t even bother because I’d never succeed and I’d end up just like her if not worse; and while losing my perfect GPA is objectively not a failure – I’m still among the top-ranked students! –, and even though I kind of knew it’d happen, well… It still feels like one to me. So when…”

“When I made it all about me and my perfect GPA?” Morgan guesses right, again.

“Yeah. That. It didn’t go down too well – still not an excuse for raising my voice, though.”

Morgan shrugs and looks away for a moment. “It’s fine. We both screwed up.”

“It’s not fine”, Claire gently insists. “It’s something I need to work on. And I don’t want to promise you that it won’t happen again, because I don’t want to make promises that I’m not sure I can keep, but if it does happen again… I need you to call me out on it. Because I might not realize I’m falling back on old habits on my own.” And the last – last – thing she wants is to make Morgan feel like she’s back in front of Jack again, even if just unintentionally.

(She doesn’t say that last part, but she has a feeling Morgan still knows exactly what she means.)

Case in point…

“So the deal is; I warn you when you start to sound like Jack, you warn me when I start to sound like your mom?”

The blunt way Morgan says it cracks Claire up, just a little. Because even though there’s nothing funny about it, nothing at all, it does get a lot of tension to bleed out of her – and messy chuckles is what that apparently results in.

“Pretty much”, she finally manages to say a few seconds later.

They fall quiet for a moment after that, just sitting on opposite ends of the bench while looking at the traffic in front of them, until Morgan speaks again.

“This is a really terrible place to be spending a Friday evening.”

Claire can’t help but snort. “Says the one who chose it!”

“It’s pretty much the only spot I know around here”, Morgan doesn’t waste any time in pointing out. “Anyway. We should get back.”

Claire hums in agreement, and so they make their way back to the apartment – in silence, once more. They’re both too lost in their thoughts to talk to each other at the same time.

By the time they’re back in what won’t be Claire’s room for much longer, Morgan seems to have mostly put the incident behind her, but Claire feels like there are still a few more things that should be said about it before she can do that too.

Because, as she realized while she was replaying the scene of their not-really-argument again and again in her mind, there’s something she failed to take into account so far: namely, that when it comes to dealing with success and failure, Morgan has an issue that is different yet eerily similar to her own at the same time, even though it presents differently. And that’s a direct consequence of their upbringing – because, while Breeze often did her best to make Claire feel belittled, Morgan’s parents… simply didn’t seem to care. They just ignored what she liked, what she managed to accomplish and what she succeeded at.

But on a fundamental level, and unlike Claire for the most part, Morgan still chased their recognition, their validation, still hoped that she would be enough somehow if she could only find the thing that’d make them proud – Claire can’t help but remember that it’s even one of the reasons she stayed with Jack for that long: because her father approved of him! –, still wanted them to look at her.

Morgan wants to be seen, to matter, to be recognized for her accomplishments.

Claire just needs hers not to be disregarded.

And they apparently both failed to understand what the other needs to hear about their midterms results.

“Hey, Morgan?” Claire says, while climbing on her bed to go sit with her back against the wall in what has kind of become their spot over the weeks. The invitation for Morgan to join her is clear but subtle enough that it could have easily been ignored, so Claire breathes out a small sigh of relief when Morgan takes it and does join her. She hasn’t broken the trust between them, like she feared she might have. “I get that I didn’t exactly… convey that message earlier, but you know that I’m proud of you, right?”

Morgan stiffens a bit and doesn’t reply right away, so Claire continues.

“You do have merit”, she says quietly as she tries to gather her thoughts, intending to make things right after her terrible outburst earlier. “I should never have implied otherwise. I know – I see – how hard you work all the time; I know how much effort you put into studying; I know you earned those results. That perfect GPA at the end of your first year of med school? It’s incredible. And yes, you do have the privilege of money, and it undoubtedly helps – but that’s not on you. That’s on the world being unfair. I should have never brought it up.”

Besides, Claire knows that it costs Morgan, emotionally, to keep relying on her parents for financial support. It doesn’t mean that she’ll do anything about it, though – Morgan is a firm believer in taking any opportunities she has to reach her goals and dealing with the consequences later, after all –, but it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t hate the situation she’s in either. Taking money from people you’d rather never owe anything to doesn’t go without consequences, no matter how hard Morgan tries to hide it.

(Although… Claire has a feeling that a side of Morgan also sees that money as retribution for what her childhood was like, and it’s a way to deal with such an internal conflict that Claire finds perfectly valid. There could be much worse justifications to use.)

“You already apologized, Claire”, Morgan finally replies, which is a deflection more than anything else.

Claire shakes her head. “I’m not trying to apologize again.” She is, however, waiting for Morgan’s reaction so she can gauge if or when she might be pushing a little too far; she doesn’t want to end up overwhelming her and risk Morgan shutting her out for a while. “I’m trying to tell you something else.”

“Which is?”

“That I would be proud of you even if you hadn’t kept that perfect GPA, because I can see how hard you fight for what you want. And, yes, you don’t always go about it the best way, but…” But it’s understandable, knowing Morgan’s background; it’s understandable why she tries so hard to win, to be better than everyone else, to reach perfection in everything she invests her time in, even if it means putting others down in the process. Because maybe no one ever saw any true value in her, but what if she were above everyone else? What if she were the absolute, undeniable best? Could the worth of her achievements, her dreams, still be undermined then?

Because Morgan is striving for success, yes, but she’s not looking to reach the top just for the self-satisfaction of it – even though she might not be fully, consciously aware of that fact. She’s hoping to gain at least some external validation in the process as well.

That’s why she’s so competitive. And that’s why she refuses to settle for anything easy – because she needs battles to fight so it’s not the end of the road. (Truth be told, Claire is even a little surprised that Morgan is dealing with their relationship being drama-free until today that well, considering how she’s always looking for obstacles to triumph over while there hasn’t been many of them so far.) Because, if it turns out there’s nothing more to focus on, nothing more standing in between her and her dreams, and she still doesn’t get recognized for those accomplishments, the exact same way she hasn’t been so far?

What would she have left then, what would she hold on to?

What can you do when you’ve achieved everything you set your mind to, accomplished incredible feats very few people could even dream of, and that’s still not enough to earn you any form of recognition you’d objectively deserve?

Morgan would just be forced to confront the fact that she didn’t need to deal with any of that, that everything she went through from the start was unnecessary – not meaningless, since it did turn her into who she is today, but oh so unnecessary –, that it didn’t get her anywhere in anyone’s eyes, and that it never even mattered in the first place to anyone other than her. That she never even managed to matter in anyone’s eyes, no matter how hard she tried.

But she matters to Claire.

And that might not be enough, but it’s something and Claire is determined to make sure Morgan doesn’t mistake her praise for a simple polite acknowledgement.

“I’m proud of you”, she repeats in a whisper as she turns her head to try to catch Morgan’s eye, with very little success. “I’m proud of you for getting yourself where you are now. I’m proud of you for never giving up. And I’d be proud of you even if that didn’t translate into your ranking first with perfect grades, and, something just as important—” She raises a hand to Morgan’s cheek, gently tracing her fingers on it until Morgan finally stops avoiding her gaze. “I need you to hear that I’ll be proud of you even if you fail one day; it won’t change how I see you. I don’t need you to be perfect to think as highly of you as I do.”

She’s just one person, and she knows that Morgan needs to feel validated by so many more people than just her girlfriend to stop craving so much praise, but she also has reason to doubt Morgan has ever heard these words from anyone before – so she’ll be damned if she leaves them unsaid. She needs Morgan to know that she’ll be in her corner, always.

It’s a lot at once, though, and Claire fully expects Morgan to deflect or brush off the weight of the moment like she almost always does, so she’s the first one surprised when Morgan lets herself be unsure and vulnerable for once.

“Do you really mean that?” Morgan asks, voice small and so unlike her usual confident self.

“Of course”, Claire murmurs in response, heartbroken by the sight of Morgan’s quickly watering eyes as she looks down at her hands in her lap. No tears fall, though – Morgan is too proud to let that happen.

There’s silence for a moment, and then Claire decides that now is as good a time as any to bring up another topic of conversation that Morgan isn’t comfortable with. They’ve already been dealing with heavy topics all evening anyway; she might as well go all the way while they’re at it.

“Did you ever revisit my idea of going to therapy?”

Morgan immediately looks back up to attempt to glare at her, but it honestly fails to feel either annoyed or threatening. She mostly just looks exhausted.

“I’ve been doing just fine dealing with everything on my own so far”, she still replies defiantly.

“Yes and no”, Claire sighs. Morgan is great at not letting her trauma affect her day-to-day life, that much is true, but what’s Claire is more concerned about is how much of it she’ll refuse to face until she has absolutely no other choice. Because as much as she seems to be dealing with what Jack did to her, Claire has a feeling that she’s actively trying not to even think about the emotional neglect her parents put her through during her entire childhood for the time being. “I think there’s a lot you’ve repressed – and that’s normal, we all do it. But we both have a fair amount of personal trauma, Morgan, and I’m worried we might end up miscommunicating or hurting each other because of it. Case in point; what happened earlier.”

“That was on us both. And we worked through it, didn’t we?”

Yes it was, and yes they did. But they had to analyze the logical results of each other’s pasts to get there, and needing to think and act like wannabe therapists for each other while dating at the same time sounds like a dangerous game to play; a ticking bomb ready to blow up in the long run. It’s one thing to trust each other with the knowledge of what happened to them, it’s something else entirely to try to navigate its consequences blindly – especially in the context of a romantic relationship.

Besides, as much as Claire is willing to help Morgan work through her trauma to the best of her ability, there are some parts of it she has zero experience with: being raised in an unsupportive religious community, for instance? She can’t even imagine what that might result in.

“This all happened because of one isolated comment, though”, Claire points out. “Can you imagine if something slowly builds over time instead – how much worse it might get? I’m not— I’m not saying it will necessarily happen, but I am saying I’d rather we take every step we can to give ourselves the best chance at not failing this relationship.” She takes a deep breath, then adds: “I’ve kind of… been talking to a therapist who volunteers at the shelter with me for a few weeks now, for that exact reason. I know living with my mom left me with some questionable coping mechanisms, and I want to work on that – and, well… on my poor communication skills in uncomfortable situations too, now, I guess.”

(The fact that she turns into an asshole when she feels attacked, as she became acutely aware of earlier, is not exactly something she likes about herself.)

“I’ll try it”, Morgan eventually says after considering Claire’s arguments. “Not with the same therapist, though – and I want it to be very clear that I’m only doing this for you.”

“Fine by me”, Claire replies, smiling.

“And I’ll also keep in mind that you turn bitchy when you get defensive”, Morgan pointedly adds.

“I can’t deny that”, Claire mutters. “It’s just… Sometimes I really need you to be my girlfriend instead of my rival.”

“Can’t I be both – aren’t I both?” Morgan asks, her tone switching to teasing in a way that confuses Claire for a second – until she realizes that this is Morgan’s way of pushing the conversation away from any potential other serious topics Claire might have wanted to bring up. (She did mention therapy out of the blue, after all.) Morgan has apparently reached her limit for the night.

“In a way, yes, but sometimes these two things just aren’t compatible”, Claire remarks.

A smirk appears on Morgan’s face. “Debatable”, she says in a low voice, and oh god, the way she’s suddenly looking at her is making Claire feel so many things at once.

(One of those things is bewilderment at how this evening played out and how quickly they switched from a really serious issue to this, but that’s not the point right now and Claire is having trouble focusing anyway.)

“That’s not what I meant”, she still tries to argue, because Morgan is definitely trying to evade discussing how their rivalry in med school might not always coexist well with their relationship, but Morgan is also slowly leaning in now and Claire quickly gives up on fighting a losing battle.

She closes the remaining gap between them instead.

It’s… a strange kiss. It’s a purposeful push and pull and a soft apology all at once, both of them trying to find their footing again after hurting each other for the first time in a way they hadn’t before, and it reminds Claire so much of the fact that neither of them really knows what they’re doing – how they’re supposed to build this relationship. There’s so much that they’re going to have to figure out along the way, so many first times they’ll need to find a way to deal with – but then again, Claire realizes, so much of their relationship has already been a story of first times for them both from the start, even all the way back to when they weren’t getting along.

First time feeling so aggravated by someone else, first time finding a connection with the most unexpected person, first time opening up about past trauma to anyone, first time letting someone in, first time building up to such a level of trust, first time…

First time falling in love.

Because Claire knows, deep down, in a way that she’s not fully ready to acknowledge yet, that what she feels for Morgan goes so much deeper than a simple crush. She’s had her fair share of crushes before, even dated some of them – but nothing compares to what she’s found in Morgan. Not even close.

And that’s why she’s willing to do everything, to put in every effort she can to make it work in the long run.

(Because she can already tell it’ll be so very worth it if it works out in the end.)

There aren’t many other incidents after that for a while – just a minor one, really, on Sunday morning that same week. Morgan came to the apartment on Saturday evening instead of spending it alone at her place like she usually does to recharge, so she could help Claire move her things from her current room to the one that was previously Ruby’s, and that obviously led to some light arguing about the best way to turn a mattress over. (That was necessary because, as it turns out, Claire’s new room already featured a double bed – one that Ruby didn’t really feel like transporting over to her new apartment because it seemed like too much hassle, and that she’d easily sold to Claire the previous week as a perfect way to get rid of it.)

The light arguing in question isn’t the incident, though. Claire’s inability to connect two brain cells together at 6am the next morning is.

But, here’s the thing – there’s a perfectly good explanation behind her stupid idea.

One: she misses the feeling of Morgan in her arms. They stupidly tried to pretend that they didn’t have to fall asleep with each other now that they had enough space to be apart if they wanted to, and as much as Claire appreciated not having Morgan half-lying on top of her anymore, she did discover that she didn’t like falling asleep on the other side of the bed with way too much room between them for no reason. And, okay, she woke up once during the night to find that they’d both drifted towards the middle and were definitely curled up against each other at that point, but she also didn’t get to wrap her arms around Morgan once her alarm sounded a few hours later because Morgan got up way too fast with the promise to make them both coffee (while Claire groaned and buried her face deeper in her pillow, because 6am is still an inhumane time to have to wake up at and she hates having to work that early in the morning).

Which leads to, two: she’s not fully awake when she finally drags herself out of bed five minutes later. She’s yawning, and rubbing her eyes, and… additionally forgetting how to use her brain when her heart skips a beat – or two – as she sees Morgan in her pajamas, with a messy bun on top of her head, waiting next to the coffee maker in the kitchen.

So she does the first thing she can think of in her current state. She walks up to Morgan, who has her back turned to her, and wraps her arms around her middle to hug her from behind – without a warning.

And, of course, that startles Morgan. Really startles her.

“Sorry”, Claire immediately says as she takes a step back. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you, I just…”

“Yeah, a warning would have been nice”, Morgan retorts dryly as she turns around to stare at Claire. She doesn’t look or sound mad, though, just… a bit shaken by the unexpected invasion of her private space. “But I appreciate the intention.”

Claire is instantly brought back to the months she spent being very careful not to touch Morgan under any circumstances, and realizes that even now that they’re dating, even now that Morgan is so much more comfortable around her, she should still be at least paying attention to when and how she tries to show affection using physical contact. Morgan’s issues with it didn’t magically disappear overnight.

“I know”, Claire sighs, running a hand through her terrible bed hair. “I’m not exactly fully awake yet.”

Morgan hums in response, her expression slowly morphing into something softer, and Claire suddenly finds herself struggling to remember how to act like a fully-functional human being. (Jenny really wasn’t lying when she was talking about heart eyes, back when Claire was too blind to notice the way Morgan stares at her sometimes.)

“What?” she asks awkwardly, a bit self-conscious all of a sudden.

Morgan shakes her head, a barely-there smile on her face. “Nothing. I just… I just occasionally forget how beautiful you are.”

It’s the first time she says something so direct, and the words almost make Claire visibly shiver as they go straight to her heart. (God, she’s so far gone already.)

“Shut up”, she mutters to try to contain the heat steadily rising up her cheeks.

She wasn’t prepared for Morgan to be so soft at 6am on a Sunday morning. She wasn’t prepared for this warm, open version of Morgan she’d only seen glimpses of here and there so far.

And she was so not prepared for the tender and playful look in Morgan’s eyes as she steps forward, the full coffee pot behind her forgotten by them both, to push a few strands of hair away from Claire’s face.

“Someone’s blushing”, Morgan teases her, the smile on her face fully there now.

There’s a part of Claire that wishes to wake up at 6am with a Morgan free of the pressure of med school a million more times just to see her like this again and again and again, and another part of her that’s scared she wouldn’t survive that. Because she’s not entirely sure she’s not going to pass out at some point during the next five minutes due to the lack of oxygen reaching her lungs at the moment.

The worst part is that Morgan is clearly aware of the effect she has on her right this second – and seems to be enjoying it immensely.

But how – how – could Claire possibly be reacting any differently? She doesn’t have a single clue how to deal with this sudden influx of affection, especially coming from Morgan: this is not usually how things go; quite the other way around, actually. Because as much as Morgan always seems comfortable to take the lead when it comes to kissing or making out – fights for it most of the time, even –, she always relies on Claire when it comes to the more… touchy-feely or romantic side of things. So where is this role reversal coming from?!

And then it clicks, in a part of Claire’s brain that is somehow still functional despite the rest of it desperately needing a reboot.

Morgan is trying. Trying to show her feelings more openly, trying to push herself out of her comfort zone, trying to give Claire exactly what she’s been seeking. She’s trying to be the girlfriend who would have been comfortable with Claire hugging her from behind without warning her about her presence first, the girlfriend who hasn’t learned to avoid and fear physical contact because someone thought her teenage years were for them to toy with, the girlfriend who’s comfortable with something as simple as reaching out to push some stray hair away from her face.

Because Morgan doesn’t know how to do any of that. But she’s trying anyway, even if she’s doing it in a way that lets her tease Claire at the same time so she’s not the only one feeling out of her depth, and the words tumble past Claire’s lips way before it occurs to her she did more than just think them. 

“I love you”, she whispers.

It’s the way Morgan’s eyes widen and her hand freezes right then that suddenly clues Claire in to the fact that she did, in fact, say this out loud.

Well—

Fighting through a sudden rush of anxiety that twists and coils in her stomach as she tries to hide the fact that she did not, at all, mean to say that out loud just yet since she’s been avoiding even admitting it to herself for a while now, Claire breathes in and out a few times to keep the rapidly approaching panic at bay. Why does she have no filter at six in the freaking morning?!

“I— I could try to hide it or deny it”, she finally says, “but it’s true. I don’t… I don’t care if it’s too fast, or too soon, by anyone’s standards. I just… do. I do.”

She feels her confidence grow the more she speaks, and she suddenly realizes that the thought is much less terrifying than it seemed to be ever since the first time it crossed her mind; if anything, letting go of the part of herself that tried to keep the depth of her feelings locked away is freeing more than it is frightening. Finally admitting that she’s spent a lot of this year slowly falling in love with Morgan… There’s something almost exhilarating about that.

She’s in love with Morgan freaking Reznick.

And she can’t find a single thing to regret about the entire journey that has led them to this very moment.

“I don’t expect you to say it back”, she says softly before Morgan can feel any pressure to do just that. “I know it might take you a really long time to be ready for that, I know nothing about this relationship is easy for you, and I don’t ever want you to feel like you need to pretend for my sake, but… I do. I love you. I love you. And I just realized that I don’t want to hide that from you.”

She reaches for Morgan’s hand that is still frozen mid-air and gently squeezes it before letting it go so she can pull her into a hug that she hopes conveys it all, and it takes a few seconds but Morgan does eventually wrap her arms around Claire too.

“So you’re sappy this early in the morning”, Morgan finally deadpans as a response to the whole declaration.

It makes Claire laugh quietly against her shoulder. “You turned soft first.”

“No”, Morgan argues. “I literally just said that you’re beautiful, which is an objective fact.”

“Hmm, sure”, Claire hums. “Well, in that case…” She leans back slightly so she can gain access to Morgan’s face for a chaste kiss. “You’re gorgeous”, she whispers against her lips.

“Now, who’s turning everything into a competition?” Morgan retorts as an immediate response, but Claire doesn’t bother replying in favor of laughing and leaning back in for another kiss instead.

It’s six in the morning, she’s in the kitchen in her pajamas kissing the woman who’s come to mean the world to her, and she’s happy. She’s just so happy.

If she’d been told at the beginning of the year…

But it’s not like that’s worth dwelling on anymore, is it?

She’s in love with Morgan Reznick now.

And that’s all that really matters.

Chapter Text

The three weeks leading up to Morgan’s first major competition end up, quite naturally, revolving a lot around archery. Whether it’s Morgan’s even more intense focus during the training sessions that Claire witnesses, the time they spend searching for a way to let Claire watch the competition since she won’t be able to travel all the way to Los Angeles with Morgan – Jenny, who is ten times more Internet-savvy than the two of them combined, eventually takes pity on them and solves that issue by somehow unearthing information about a website that’ll have a livestream for the competition on the days it happens –, or the numerous conversations they have on Friday evenings that mostly consist in Morgan telling stories about her past and Claire listening intently… It’s all about archery, more archery, and even more archery.

And Claire loves it – especially the part where she gets to learn more about what Morgan was like as a child and a teenager. She loves the time they spend in that amazing double bed they now get to share, facing each other as they snuggle under the covers and spend hours doing nothing more than talk and stare at each other, and she relishes the intimacy of it all, because Morgan is so much less guarded in moments like this and Claire treasures every moment she gets to see her be honest about what she truly feels.

The last weekend before the competition, though, things go a little differently.

Their Friday evening starts the way the previous ones did, with Morgan bringing her laptop over so that they can watch a show together – Jenny, bless her heart, recommended they check out Person of Interest because she had a feeling they would both love it, and they indeed got hooked on it almost immediately –, but where they’d usually turn it off after two episodes to switch to talking instead, this time, Morgan breaks the routine by keeping her laptop open and pulling it into her lap so she can browse the Internet for a minute first.

“What are you doing?” Claire asks, both curious and confused.

“It’ll only take a minute”, Morgan answers, eyes glued to the screen. “I just realized there’s one competition I forgot to take into account in my statistics, so I want to find the results before I forget.”

So that’s… not helpful for Claire. “What statistics?”

“About my competitors next week. I’ve been analyzing their results, what distances and settings they’re most comfortable with, and trying to identify which ones respond better to a confident opponent compared to a more subdued attitude – whether it unsettles them or makes them focus more when they don’t feel like they have the upper hand. That last part required a fair amount of former competitions to watch, but I think it’ll be worth it.”

“That’s… a lot”, Claire breathes out, bewildered. She’d be less surprised with that kind of research if they were talking about a combat sport, for instance, where knowing your direct opponent does matter quite a bit, but archery? It’s purely individual, even in the context of team competitions.

“Maybe”, Morgan concedes. “But I can’t exactly walk in there without having at least a decent understanding of who I’m going to be competing against, unless I want to make a fool out of myself.”

It’s the last part that suddenly gets Claire to understand what Morgan isn’t directly saying. For the longest time, she kept herself completely separate from the world of high-level competitive archery – because it hurt too much to be faced with dreams that got nowhere and the potential she knew she had to get up there, but that she never got the occasion to turn into actual opportunities –, so, unlike other young athletes who usually look up to the people they one day end up competing against, Morgan reached adulthood completely clueless about who’s who in that world. And it’s understandable, oh so understandable, why she doesn’t want to feel lost in it now that it’s suddenly become within her reach, especially since she’s hoping to enter it with a bang then position herself as a serious threat following the L.A. qualifier series event.

So, of course Morgan would spend hours upon hours studying the people that are about to be her competitors as a way to familiarize herself with the world she’s about to step into. The approach makes complete sense for her.

“Tell me about them”, Claire suggests, almost whispering. “That way, I won’t be lost while watching the competition either.”

And so Morgan does, turning the screen a little so she can show Claire pictures and videos while giving information about the bigger names’ backstory, average results and history. It’s not the most comfortable position, though, both of them having to crane their neck at one point or another, so Claire quickly moves to cuddle up against Morgan instead and that makes things a whole lot simpler.

After that, it takes her about five minutes of hearing about national rankings and international competitions – it takes her until the first mention of a competitor who participated in the last Olympics, actually – to realize why Morgan was that shocked when Mr McCall told her which competition he wanted her to participate in. Because, while she’d understood that a USAT Qualifier Series Event is kind of a big deal… it hadn’t yet sunk in that it’s actually a ‘major competition counting as one of the qualifiers for the US National Team and featuring several people who participated in past World Championships or Olympic Games’ level of huge freaking deal.

“You’re telling me that you’re about to be competing against an actual Olympian ?!” Claire suddenly asks, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, unable to understand how in the world Morgan isn’t currently freaking out (because she would be a complete mess in a similar situation). “How are you this calm about it?!”

“Because it turns out I do have a shot at medaling at this competition”, Morgan replies with a small shrug. “My indoor average results are high enough; all I need to figure out now is if I’ll manage a similar performance under the pressure of such a major competition, but to be completely honest… I’m not worried. I’m mostly looking forward to experiencing the thrill of it.”

“Yeah, sometimes I forget that what gets most people anxious gets you excited instead”, Claire mutters, glaring half-heartedly when the remark makes a playful smirk appear on Morgan’s lips.

“I just wish Mr McCall would let me skip the outdoor event since that will be an embarrassment, but… as far as the indoor competition goes, I’m feeling fairly confident. It’ll be a challenge, that’s for sure, but I have a shot at winning this.” Morgan suddenly stops and pauses for a second, then slowly repeats, like the words’ meaning just fully hit her: “I have a shot at winning an event at a national competition.”

“You have a shot at winning an event at a national competition”, Claire echoes. “How surreal does it feel?”

Morgan doesn’t exactly answer the question. “Fourteen years”, she says instead. “I started archery about fourteen years ago, and today it finally feels like all the hours I put into it were worth it.”

“You did it because you’ve always loved the sport”, Claire replies softly. “That’s worth something in itself too.”

Morgan grins. “Yeah. But winning always makes everything so much better.”

Claire rolls her eyes and shakes her head, amused by the response that’s the exact opposite of surprising coming from Morgan, but the truth is… she’s pretty sure she’s never seen her that radiant before, so she doesn’t mind the attitude at all. Being so close to making a childhood dream come true is obviously filling Morgan with joy, and the last thing Claire wants is to take any part of it away from her.

“You’ll look great on the podium”, she says, unable to keep from smiling as well.

“That’s the plan”, Morgan agrees, biting her lip in anticipation. “That’s the plan.”

Claire crosses her fingers, and hopes with all her might that Morgan’s competition will lead to success and not disappointment.

“Has it started yet?”

Claire takes her eyes off the screen to look up at Jenny, standing on the threshold of the door she’s pushed ajar.

“The livestream has, the competition hasn’t yet. We can only vaguely see the competitors getting ready at the moment. Why?”

“Because I plan on watching with you. How long until we start to get some action going?”

“You want to watch?” Claire asks, surprised.

Jenny laughs as she fully enters the room and closes the door behind her. “If I leave you here on your own all day, I’m pretty sure you won’t have any nails left by the time the competition is over, no matter the outcome.” She lightly slaps Claire’s fingers away from her mouth as she comes to sit cross-legged next to her on the bed, and well, okay, point taken. “Besides, I kind of want to see our unofficial fifth roommate kick ass either way; it’ll be a fun way to spend my weekend. I know absolutely nothing about archery, though, so you’re going to have to walk me through whatever is happening when it does actually start happening.”

“I’ve never watched an archery competition before either”, Claire replies with a shrug, “but most of it is pretty simple: the competitors shoot, the goal is to put as many arrows as close to the center of the targets as possible, and the ranking is based on the average score – at least in the qualification round. You know, the competition will actually start with the men, if you want to come back later; you don’t have to sit through it all just because I wouldn’t be able to sit still if I were doing anything else anyway.”

“Nah, I’m good. It’ll give me time to figure out how they do things. Damn though, the quality of the stream is… so bad”, Jenny complains, leaning closer to the screen and squinting, even though it obviously doesn’t help her see anything any better.

“Yeah, well, archery isn’t quite the most popular sport”, Claire sighs. “It’s a miracle you found that livestream to begin with.” And that Morgan left her laptop at the apartment so that she could watch it – although, given how things turned out, she guesses she could have been watching the competition on Jenny’s computer instead.

“That’s a lot of targets”, Jenny says, still squinting at the screen. “How are they even sure the arrows end up in the right target and not in the one to the left or the one to the right?”

That makes Claire laugh out loud. “Two months ago, I would have probably asked a similar question”, she admits. “But I can assure you, it’s already rare to see an archer miss, so to have an arrow lost something like two meters away from the center, in another target? That doesn’t happen.”

“You’re the expert, I guess”, Jenny mutters. “Oh, wait— The men are walking to the line on the ground; it’s about to start!”

Keeping an eye on the screen, Claire reaches blindly behind her to grab her phone and send Morgan one last good luck text.

You got this, I love you, and I’m proud of you no matter what ♥

Morgan: Yes. I got this.

Morgan: Also, I’m told I should focus instead of smiling at texts from my girlfriend, so I’m off until the qualification round is over.

Claire shakes her head and chuckles, a full month of watching Morgan practice twice a week making her more than able to hear Mr McCall’s gruff reprimand even without being there. (She does wonder, though, if he’s aware that he’s one of the very rare people on the planet Morgan actually, fully listens to.) But the thing is, he’s right; Morgan really shouldn’t let herself be distracted, even more so since the outdoor events – that she’s not fully prepared for – are the ones happening first during this round, so Claire puts her phone back down and focuses solely on the screen.

Well, for about two seconds at most. Because—

“Oh, so I get what Lea means now. You’ve completely given up on hiding the heart eyes”, Jenny teases her.

“What?” Claire mutters. Quickly followed by: “Wait, you’ve been talking to Lea?”

“Duh”, Jenny says, laughing. “She, Alex and I have an ongoing group conversation to share juicy details – well, there’s not much coming from Alex for now since he’s in a different part of the country for most of the holidays, but we’re counting on him after classes start again – from the moment we exchanged numbers, when you and Morgan were too busy making out in your room during game night, so… I mean, did you really think we could pass up such a golden opportunity?”

“Why are you all so obsessed with my relationship with Morgan?” Claire whines, fully able to guess why they created such a group conversation without even having to ask for clarification about what the aforementioned ‘juicy details’ might be.

“Because you happen to be living the dream with the perfect romance while the three of us are painfully single?” Jenny replies lightly. She throws an arm around Claire’s shoulders and squeezes, then lets her go with a grin. “We live vicariously through you to cope. Don’t judge us.”

“Shut up and watch”, Claire sighs.

Morgan ends up placing twenty-first out of fifty-seven competitors in the outdoor recurve women event, then… sixth out of seventy-two in the indoor one. From what Claire could tell from the terrible livestream and the rare times the camera would focus on the competitors one by one, Morgan didn’t deliver her best performance; some arrows were unusually shaky, betraying her nerves as she shot alongside many nationally-ranked archers for the first time in her life – even though Morgan is someone who is almost immune to anxiety as a general rule –, but in the grand scheme of things… whether Morgan made a few mistakes here and there in the qualification round doesn’t really matter much. And with this first experience now out of the way, Claire has no doubt that she’ll be a lot more steady going forward.

“Wait, walk me through what those results mean”, Jenny asks once they’ve seen the results on the dedicated page. “What did she qualify for and in which events?”

“She’s through to the elimination round on both”, Claire answers, slightly proud of herself for knowing all of this without even having to think about it now. Morgan taught her well. “The sixty-four best archers advance each time.”

“But… there aren’t even sixty-four people in the outdoor competition”, Jenny remarks, puzzled. “What was the point of having a useless qualification round?!”

“It’s just how things are done”, Claire replies with a small shrug. “For Morgan, it was a good thing; it gave her some experience in such a major competition and a boost of confidence at the same time, but no, the results didn’t really matter much – and no, that didn’t stop me from stressing about them anyway.”

“Wait”, Jenny says again. “Major competition? With everyone qualifying by default? How major are we talking exactly?”

Claire, who can anticipate what Jenny’s reaction will be considering how fresh her own still is in her memory after only a week, does her best to answer as casually as possible for maximum effect.

“I told you, archery is far from the most popular sport; that’s why there are so few people even in national competitions. But yes, major – major enough for two Olympians and a few people who won World Championships medals to be in the mix.”

Shock makes Jenny pretty much jump up and off the bed, almost tripping over her own feet in the process. “Are you telling me that your girlfriend just placed sixth in a competition against literal Olympians ?!” she exclaims loudly.

Claire can’t contain her grin any longer.

“Yes. Yes, she did”, she says, nodding wildly.

Jenny’s sudden laughter is somewhere between incredulous and amazed. “Wow”, she whistles. “Don’t forget me once you’re dating a celebrity, I guess!”

“Like I could”, Claire chuckles, leaning to the side until she can grab Jenny’s wrist and pull her back to the bed. “But, uh, yes. I have a pretty badass girlfriend.”

“You don’t say”, Jenny retorts, her eyes still wide. “Why aren’t you calling her so you can freak out together right this second?”

“Because she’s watching the other events and soaking up the atmosphere of the competition”, Claire replies easily. “We agreed she’d be the one to call me once it’s all over and she has more than five minutes ahead of her.”

“Even then, I would not be able to resist picking up that phone and leaving an overly-excited message featuring lots of screaming”, Jenny admits. “You have more self-control than I do.”

“I don’t know; I think it’s just that I’d rather talk to her directly. Even if it means waiting.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t even surprises me. But anyway, when’s the next round?”

“Tomorrow afternoon”, Claire answers. Being able to stay home on Friday morning and Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning was a delicate affair that required calling in a few favors with her colleagues and managers, but she did manage to rearrange several shifts until she made it work. “Will you be watching with me again?”

“Well, yeah, of course. I’m invested in this now!”

“I’ll make sure to tell Morgan you’re her second biggest fan”, Claire promises.

Jenny grins and bumps her shoulder against Claire’s. “You’d better!”

Morgan ends up calling midway through the afternoon, once she’s back in her hotel room and can finally talk with no rush.

“Oh my god, you were amazing”, Claire says excitedly as soon as she picks up.

“I made several stupid mistakes, but overall, yes, things did go rather well”, Morgan replies. “Hi, by the way.”

“Hi”, Claire laughs. “Sorry. I’ve been looking at the phone, willing it to ring, for probably close to an hour now, so I may be a bit over-eager. But, sixth?! Wow!”

“That ranking doesn’t matter, though; the real competition will be tomorrow. But… yeah. I was pretty great”, Morgan says, letting go of the lingering self-criticism as her voice begins to sound more like her regular boasting whenever she achieves something. “Even Mr McCall seemed mostly satisfied with me – and he never is.”

“You managed to impress him”, Claire says happily. He must have been waiting to see if Morgan would crumble under the pressure, but she rose to the challenge instead and Claire has very little doubt in her mind that he was very proud to see her do so well. (Whether he showed it is a completely different matter, though.)

“Yeah, I think so”, Morgan agrees. “Anyway, do you know how absolutely amazing it was to be there, surrounded by so many incredible archers? Besides, I made a bit of an impression. It’s not every day a newcomer casually places so high in the rankings!”

“Tell me all about it”, Claire says eagerly.

So Morgan does, talking for almost two hours about the world she didn’t even dare dream of as a kid because it seemed it would never be within her reach, and that she’s discovering now as an adult. Claire is content to mostly just listen, adding some comments or questions here and there but otherwise staying quiet and letting Morgan talk passionately about how incredible her morning was.

(Oh, how she wishes she could have been there with her to witness the whole thing first-hand…)

They do eventually have to hang up, though, if only because Claire needs to get ready and go to work, but there’s a smile glued to her face as she does so and she can’t help but feel like this entire day has been nothing but magical.

Morgan placed sixth in the indoor event. Sixth!

She can only hope the elimination round will go a similar way the next day.

“Oh, this is a lot more stressful”, Jenny mutters when she realizes that archers will now go one against one, and receive points based on who has the highest cumulative score for each end – an end being a three-arrow group – that will then, after a minimum of three ends but possibly more in case no one has reached six points yet, determine the winner of each match.

“Tell me about it”, Claire replies, her heart rate going wild already.

“Are you going to survive this?” Jenny asks after glancing at her and assessing her current state. “Also, wow, the targets look even smaller now that there isn’t a full row of them on the other end. How can you aim at something like that from so far away and not miss completely?!”

“It becomes a bit less shocking with time”, Claire tells her. She finds it rather amusing to be saying this now, considering how unbelievable she found it during Morgan’s tryout, but it does start to seem less impossible once you get used to seeing someone shoot regularly. Not any less impressive – but less impossible, for sure.

“Hmm. If you say so”, Jenny says, not fully convinced.

Claire can’t fault her for that. She felt the exact same way two months ago.

After that, it takes five more minutes for the indoor competition to start, and that’s when Claire becomes suddenly really glad she’s not watching this alone. Because, while Morgan is almost immune to stress… she, on the other hand, really isn’t.

The 1/32nd round goes pretty smoothly. Morgan is clearly the better archer, winning all three ends rather easily, and Claire watches her shoot arrow after arrow on the terrible livestream without feeling any additional anxiety.

The 1/16th round isn’t too much of a challenge for Morgan either. There’s a fourth end because she’s at only five points after the third, a tie on the second end giving her opponent a point as well, but it’s still a comfortable victory. Claire isn’t holding her breath yet.

The 1/8th round, on the other hand…

“Claire”, Jenny whines when the first three ends, then the fourth, lead to a tie because Morgan and her opponent are rather well-matched, “I love you, but also, ow?”

Pulled back to the reality existing outside of the livestream and the live scoring open on the screen, Claire blinks in surprise when she realizes that she’s holding on to Jenny’s arm and almost crushing it in her grip. “Sorry”, she apologizes as she (mostly) releases the poor Jenny. “But…”

She gestures to the screen by way of explanation, and Jenny pats her shoulder with sympathy.

“Morgan’s good under pressure, right? So, relax. She’s got this.”

And indeed, Morgan does. She puts all three arrows in the bull’s eye of the target, and thus wins that end after her opponent only scores a nine for her last arrow.

That puts her in the quarter finals. She’s one of the eight best archers in the indoor recurve event, no matter what happens.

Jenny grabs a pillow and hands it to a restless Claire, who immediately begins squeezing it as she leans even closer to the screen.

“She’s got this”, Jenny repeats, apparently a bit amused by the intensity of Claire’s reaction.

“Yeah”, Claire mumbles in response, “but uh, remember how I mentioned there are two former Olympians in this competition? Well, fun fact – Morgan’s next opponent is one of them.”

Jenny’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“On the upside, even if she loses this round? There are worst ways to go than being taken out by a freaking Olympian!”

“I know, but…”

“You want her to win the whole damn thing”, Jenny finishes in Claire’s stead, a fond smile on her face. “Yeah. I figured that out.”

Except… The first three ends find Morgan two points behind her opponent.

She evens the score in the fourth one, though, when she shoots three perfect arrows in the bull’s eye while her opponent misses it once, meaning they are at four points each now; but that’s not yet enough to determine the winner, and Claire feels like she’s going to pass out from the sheer stress of having to watch this go down from behind a screen – especially so when Morgan’s next arrow veers a little too much to the left and earns her only a nine instead of a perfect ten, because that puts her in quite a tight spot that doesn’t leave any more room for a mistake going forward.

“What happens if they tie on the fifth end as well?” Jenny asks as more arrows fly toward the bull’s eye and only one remains to be shot for both of them.

“A shoot-off”, Claire replies distractedly. Morgan is nocking her last arrow, and if she messes up that one, it’s over for her almost for sure.

She doesn’t, though. She doesn’t mess it up at all – she sends it straight in what might very well be the center of the bull’s eye, and thus finishes this end with a total of twenty-nine.

She still has a fighting chance.

If her opponent manages to hit the bull’s eye, though…

But the last arrow of the fifth end seems to enjoy creating suspense, because no results appear for a little while after it’s shot.

“What’s going on now?” Jenny inquires.

“I’m guessing it’s too close to a line and the judges have to go see exactly where it’s embedded”, Claire explains, trying and failing to sound calm. “If it touches the line, it’s awarded the score of the area inside that line; otherwise, the score stays lower.”

An agonizing minute later, the score comes up – twenty-nine to twenty-nine. The arrow didn’t touch the line after all.

“Shoot-off”, Claire breathes out, relief and stress flooding her at the same time.

“So what’s that exactly?”

“They each shoot one arrow, and the closest to the center wins.”

“Hmm. How are you doing?”

Claire makes a noise that says it all, but doesn’t otherwise reply.

And five minutes later, once the shoot-off starts and both arrows land in the bull’s eye, meaning that the judges will now have to measure which one is closest, she swears she really stops breathing.

Morgan advances to the semi finals.

Claire screams and crushes Jenny in a side hug.

“Five to three. She only needs a tie to be through to the finals.”

Claire glances at Jenny and taps her hand nervously on the bed. “Actually, she could still win even if she lost the fifth end, because that’d lead to another shoot-off. But to be completely honest with you… I’m not sure my heart could take it.”

“Good point. She’s more likely to win this than not right now, though.”

“Realistically, I know that, but… The finals, Jenny. She could reach the finals in her first national competition. Can you imagine?!”

“I don’t have to”, Jenny replies cheekily. “I’m watching it happen.”

“Shhh. They’re shooting again.”

And the first arrow almost immediately lands in the bull’s eye, but then Morgan – who’s shooting second this time – evens the score, and then they both do the exact same thing again, and so by the time they get to the third and final arrow of the fifth end, the pressure must be almost unbearable in the arena.

But that doesn’t seem to be a problem.

“Ten. Ten, ten, ten”, they hear through the livestream a first time.

“Come on, Morgan”, Claire hisses, eyes dry from leaving them glued to the screen for so long without blinking. She can’t mess up now. She can’t…

She doesn’t.

She raises her bow with steady hands, and releases her final arrow with perfect aim.

“Ten, ten, ten”, they hear being called once more.

Six to four. Morgan is through to the finals.

Claire absolutely loses it.

Morgan ends up taking home the silver medal after the gold medal match on Sunday morning, though not without putting in a serious fight that has her only losing four to six after the fifth end. A part of her must be disappointed about it, for sure – does Morgan ever settle for anything other than perfection? –, but realistically, it absolutely is an incredible result that introduces Morgan as a serious threat to every other competitor going forward.

Claire doesn’t get to see her receive that medal, though, because it turns out the livestream doesn’t broadcast it. And that makes her incredibly sad, even as she’s otherwise elated about the results.

(Next year, she promises herself. Next year, she’ll find a way to go with Morgan to the exact same competition, and she’ll be there to cheer her on this time.)

“Damn, Morgan sure didn’t mess around in her first competition”, Jenny comments as Claire closes the tab and puts the laptop in sleep mode. “And I so don’t regret watching all of this go down with you – even though I’m not one hundred percent certain I don’t have bruises on my arms now.”

“I got a bit stressed at times”, Claire says sheepishly.

Jenny chuckles. “Yeah, you don’t say.”

“Would you have fared any better in my shoes, though?”

“Probably not”, Jenny has to admit. “But I also don’t have a super pretty, super hot, super badass girlfriend participating in national competitions, so it’s not like I have to ask myself that question.”

“You forgot super smart”, Claire says, grinning.

“Rub it in, why don’t you”, Jenny grumbles. “Also, my god, you have literal stars in your eyes right now – you’re so whipped.”

And, well…

It’s not like Claire could deny that in any way.

They don’t get to call each other after the medal ceremony. They knew that might happen; Claire has a shift at the local supermarket not long after the indoor competition ends – for all she managed to change her schedule to be able to watch Morgan live, there was still only so much she could do –, and since Morgan doesn’t manage to call right away, they have no chance of speaking at all before Morgan and Mr McCall leave Los Angeles.

And after that? Once Claire’s shift is over? Well, no one really wants to have a nice, long, celebratory chat with their girlfriend while on a car ride with their coach – Morgan, at least, certainly doesn’t –, so the two of them decide via text that they’d rather wait two more hours for Mr McCall to drop her off at Claire’s apartment where Morgan will spend the night. They’ve always preferred to talk in person anyway.

The wait is torturous, though. Even more so when Mr McCall’s car ends up stuck in traffic for close to an additional hour.

In the end, it’s around 8pm when Morgan finally sends Claire a text to say that she’ll be there in five minutes, and Claire has to refrain from pacing that entire time. She must be doing a terrible job at hiding just how much she’s buzzing with anticipation, though, because she catches Jenny snickering quietly a few times while they eat dinner with all their roommates – including Ashley, who recently moved into what was Claire’s room until a few weeks ago – around the coffee table in the living room.

Well, sue her.

Her girlfriend is freaking incredible and she can’t wait to see her – so what?

So none of her roommates, save for Jenny, are aware that she and Morgan are dating, that’s what. But damn, it’s hard.

At long last, the much-awaited knock on the door finally sounds, and Claire immediately jumps to her feet to go open it. “It’s Morgan”, she tells the others to justify her reaction.

And it’s Morgan indeed, standing in the corridor with her hands in a tight grip around the straps of her backpack and the absolute biggest grin on her face. She looks like a child coming back from the best road trip of their life – and in a way, Claire supposes, that’s kind of an accurate description for many different reasons. Especially since Morgan never got to experience that kind of joy before.

“Hi”, Claire breathes out, still trying to keep some sort of composure due to the presence of her roommates in the room right behind her.

Morgan, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to care about them knowing anymore. Because she takes one look above Claire’s shoulders, sees what are probably a few pairs of curious eyes on her, and still takes two purposeful steps forward to throw her arms around Claire and kiss her.

And that’s… unexpected, to say the least – but Claire isn’t about to complain about it. She does let out a small sound of surprise at first, though, because huh, that’s new, but once the initial shock wears off, she quickly forgets all about anything that isn’t kissing Morgan back.

Well – until they’re both grinning too wide to be able to do more than vaguely press their lips together, at least.

“Get a room!” Jenny exclaims from the couch where she’s sitting, laughter obvious in her voice as she teases them just because she can.

Morgan ignores her completely, looking at Claire’s other roommates instead to say an almost defiant: “Yes, so. We’re dating, by the way.”

Ellen snorts and shakes her head. “With the amount of time you spend sleeping in Claire’s bed, I think we all kind of guessed, you know.”

“She has a point”, Jenny remarks, laughing again. “Also, congrats, champ!”

“Thank you”, Morgan replies sincerely – and wow, Claire swears she’s almost glowing right now. It has to be obvious to anyone looking at her just how important this competition was to her, and even more so its results.

“Stop being polite – it’s a weird look on you – and go celebrate”, Jenny almost orders, shooing them towards Claire’s bedroom even if only from afar. “I’ll tease you about how terrible you two are at not showing your feelings for each other later; you’ve sure earned that respite.”

Claire half-heartedly glares at her, but the thought of spending some time alone with Morgan is indeed, and admittedly, way more enticing – so it’s not long before she turns it into action.

“You were absolutely freaking incredible”, Claire can’t help but say as soon as they’re both in her room with the door closed. “You got yourself of that podium!! And that’s after you reached the 1/8th round in the outdoor event yesterday as well – you’re just…”

(The outdoor event in question was way less stressful to watch, since Morgan never had any high hopes for it to begin with, but the result was still better than what she’d been expecting to achieve. And Claire is so incredibly proud of her for all of it, she doesn’t even know how to express it.)

“I’m aiming for the highest step next year”, Morgan says, still grinning. “On both events. But that won’t be my focus for the next few months, because…” She shakes her head like she can’t quite believe what she’s about to say. “I’m going to compete again this year. I’ve been told that my results this weekend are enough for Mr McCall to justify the expenses associated with traveling across the country a few times a year to the university – and since participating in every national competition means that I’ll get nationally ranked, it also means that I might get some international assignments at some point if I keep this up and improve my outdoor skills.”

To say that Claire has to pick up her jaw off the floor is barely an exaggeration.

“Morgan!” she squeals. “Oh my god!”

“There were journalists, Claire”, Morgan continues, biting her lip to try (and fail) to contain her incredibly wide smile. “There were people who wanted to interview me because of how unusual it is for someone to grab the silver medal at their first national competition!”

And that’s everything Morgan ever wanted, right? The attention, the praise, and soon the relative fame because of her skills and her lifelong passion – that’s everything Morgan’s been after for a very long time. So to finally have it all now, after everything she went through to get to this moment? It must not even be possible to put that feeling into words.

And a part of Claire did wonder, at some point during this weekend, if she would ever get to experience finding her true passion the way Morgan has, but it didn’t take her long to figure out that she, in fact, already found it. Her passion is helping the people who need it most; and even though that’s not something that will ever be recognized by the world at large the same way loving a sport and being good at it is, she’s rather fine with that. She’d rather have the peace of anonymity than the scrutiny of fame – and that’s something she and Morgan will probably never have in common.

“I’m so proud of you”, Claire says, partly because it’s oh so true and partly because she finds herself at a loss for words. Though after a second, when another thought crosses her mind, she adds: “And for telling my roommates about us too, by the way.”

Morgan shrugs it off like it’s no big deal, rather than a major step forward in becoming comfortable with her identity the way she is with everything else. “It was about time.”

And Claire lets it slide, because maybe it can just be that easy if no one makes a big deal about it indeed.

… And also because Morgan is kissing her again, and she’s not about to argue with that.

She knows why they’ve switched away from words, though. She knows that Morgan is a lot more comfortable showing her feelings than trying to express them out loud – but she also gets the not-so-hidden meaning of it all even when neither of them is doing any kind of talking, so she doesn’t exactly mind communicating that way from time to time.

Thank you for caring, Morgan is trying to say. Thank you for thinking that my interests and who I am do matter, even though no one ever did before. And I want to share this moment with you – but this is really the only way I know how.

I don’t mind, Claire hopes she’s managing to answer as she interlocks their fingers and gently squeezes Morgan’s hands. I understand you just fine.

(I love you, is another message that she knows Morgan is currently, even if unconsciously, trying to convey.

But no matter how self-aware Morgan might be at the moment, Claire would never try to push her to be more explicit about the depths of her feelings either way. She doesn’t have to.)

(She simply doesn’t need to hear the words to feel just how much they ring true.)

Chapter Text

“Come on, it’ll be fun!”

Morgan doesn’t even look up from her plate. “No.”

Lea turns to Claire with a helpless look on her face. “Can you please help me out here?”

“Help you convince Morgan that she should cave in and agree to your idea of how to celebrate her silver medal, even though it’s not appealing to her?” Claire replies, her tone amused but also unmistakably sassy. “Why would I do that?”

“Because neither of you actually listened”, Lea retorts, undeterred. “She doesn’t have to sing if that’s not her thing; she can just watch me embarrass myself if that’s more appealing to her. But I am inviting a few of my friends to that karaoke bar I know on Sunday no matter whether you two decide to show up or not – so it’s not about her; I just also happen to think that it’d be a great opportunity to celebrate. Fyi, Alex will be there since his plane lands on Saturday, Shaun already said he’ll come as well, Jenny’s totally down, and I’m just waiting on Carly for confirmation. So you’d totally be missing out.”

Okay. Claire has to admit, Lea’s offer does sound appealing.

“So it would be the same people who came to my game night after the end of the semester?”

“Pretty much, yeah. And I can assure you no one will care how well either of you sings or if you even want to sing at all.”

“I don’t mind singing, just not in a bar full of half-drunk people”, Morgan interjects dryly. “But yes – I have to admit, your idea isn’t the worst you’ve ever had.”

Lea fake-gasps. “Coming from you, that’s practically a compliment.”

“Don’t flatter yourself”, Morgan scoffs. A quick glance at Claire for confirmation later, she adds: “But fine, we’ll come – on one condition. You won’t get to complain about anything I say that day.”

“Hit me with your best savage retorts”, Lea almost dares her, her face splitting in a wide smile.

Morgan shakes her head. “You literally said ‘fyi’ out loud a minute ago. I don’t think I’ll have to try very hard.”

Claire shakes her head too, out of fond exasperation more than anything else, and sits back in her chair as Lea grins even wider. The fact that Morgan agreed to something coming from her is a small miracle in itself, and Claire can’t help but wonder how much longer Morgan will continue to deny that, yes – she likes the feeling of being included, actually.

“I look forward to it”, Lea says with a wink that doesn’t manage to annoy Morgan the way it once did.

Things have evolved quite a bit since the beginning of the year, it would seem.

On all fronts.

The rest of the week goes by quickly. The most notable thing is that Morgan has her first therapy session on Thursday – and after more than an hour’s worth of inner debate, Claire tentatively brings it up the next day.

“How was it?” she simply asks.

Morgan scowls. “I hate it.”

(She still keeps going, though. Over the course of the next few weeks, she keeps going; but she so very obviously doesn’t want that to be acknowledged that Claire simply doesn’t mention it again.

The fact that it stays an unspoken fact between them doesn’t stop a feeling of pride and warmth and relief all at once settle deep within Claire’s chest, though.)

After that, they spend a fair bit of time reading the articles that have been written about Morgan following her interviews at the qualifier series event (or, more exactly, Morgan shows them all to Claire one by one). And while it’s a bit pointless because she’s seen most of them already – through the much appreciated help of Jenny’s laptop, because she couldn’t resist the urge –, she purposely doesn’t say a word about it: Morgan looks so very eager that it’d honestly be cruel to take that away from her.

Besides, she quite likes hearing the little behind the scenes stories that Morgan can’t help but tell, about things she said or did during the interviews that didn’t make it onto the page. It makes her feel… It makes her feel a bit closer to the competition, because Morgan is reliving it with her now – and yeah, sure, that’s not the same as being actually there as it happens, but it’s still better than the cold anonymity of the livestream she was watching it through.

“I wish I could have been there to cheer you on”, she says quietly at some point during the evening.

“I know”, Morgan simply replies, and her eyes are soft but filled with longing when she looks back at her.

Sunday night rolls around quickly after that, and before long they end up following Lea into a dimly-lit karaoke bar that Claire decides she likes as soon as she looks around the main room. It gives off very cozy vibes, it’s not too crowded, and most people seem to be there to have a genuinely good time rather than get wasted by the end of the night.

Lea is clearly familiar with the place, navigating it with ease; she finds them a table big enough to accommodate seven people in a matter of minutes, and all of them pretty much stay there the entire night except when they’re singing.

“I come here every time I go out with Shaun”, she explains after listing the best drinks that are available to order. “I was familiar with a few bartenders at the beginning of the year already – I know most people who work here now –, and it helped with, you know, the fake IDs and all that. Shaun can’t lie to save his life, so it’s best to stick to a place where everyone tacitly plays along and doesn’t actually ask to see the fake ID in question.” She laughs and shrugs. “Plus, the place is nice. So we keep coming back.”

And yeah, she’s right about that – the place is nice, and at no point does anyone regret their decision to come. Claire happily catches up with Alex, who came back well before the end of the holidays in order to attend some tutoring sessions that the university organizes during the second half of August, Carly seems to enjoys watching Shaun turn rather dorky after consuming a bit of alcohol, Jenny gets to know everyone a bit better…

And they sing, too – well, most of them, at least. Morgan adamantly refuses to get on stage, even when Jenny tries to convince her that she and Claire should do a duet together; they spend their time watching the others go while snuggling on a seat instead, and Claire revels in this recent development called Morgan does apparently not care whether their physical closeness reads as blatantly couple-y in public anymore. She lets herself be dragged in front of a microphone once, though, to sing with Jenny who’s otherwise spent a fair amount of time sharing the stage with Lea instead, and by the time she makes it back to their table after the song ends, Morgan is staring at her with her mouth slightly agape.

“You’re good”, she says, her voice coming out slightly breathless. “Like… Really good. You… You should do a song by yourself. Everyone would be enthralled – starting with me.”

But Claire doesn’t feel confident enough to do that, and she doesn’t really know how to deal with honest compliments either. So she deflects it all.

“I did inherit some stuff from my mom, I guess.”

“Well – good thing you only took qualities from her, then”, Morgan quips in return.

And Claire… Claire’s not entirely sure she believes that, so she smiles but otherwise stays quiet as she watches Shaun go on stage first with Lea, then again a second time with Carly. He seems to be enjoying himself immensely both times, and Claire loves seeing him sing like no one is watching because he simply doesn’t care.

So, yeah. All in all, they spend an amazing evening.

Although, there is one thing that bugs Claire for a little while not long after she comes back from her duet with Jenny: it’s how Morgan starts to get a bit… possessive with her for some reason. ‘Some reason’ being, as she figures out a few minutes later, that a few guys started paying some close attention to her after she stopped singing and keep trying to catch her eyes now.

Well. So Morgan really is the jealous type, huh?

Enough to have an arm wrapped around Claire to hold her close in a rather stiff manner, at the very least, and to squeeze a little tighter every time someone is looking their way a bit too insistently.

And Claire almost pulls away at first, being very much not a fan of controlling behaviors and all that, but then she actually puts some thought into the situation and ends up doing the exact opposite instead. Rather than reject Morgan’s embrace, she burrows completely into it.

And Morgan’s arms almost immediately loosen around her. Because this was never actually about control – this is about Morgan needing the reassurance that Claire is really there, in her arms; that she chooses to be there and not anywhere else – not with anyone else.

They finish the evening with Claire’s head on Morgan’s shoulder, both of them comfortably snuggled up on the seat they share, and with no trace of possessiveness rearing its head anymore. (Because sometimes, some reassurance in the form of non-verbal communication is really all it takes, it would seem.)

Again – it’s a great evening for all of them; to the point where even Morgan reluctantly admits that she doesn’t regret coming as they’re exiting the bar, after Jenny bugged her for five whole minutes until she agrees to give an honest opinion of what she thought the evening was like. It’s a great evening, and everything is going really well, and so of course something just has to happen to disturb that sense of peace halfway through the next week.

A text from the owners of New Beginnings appears on Claire’s phone Wednesday evening, is more exactly what happens.

She doesn’t see it right away – her phone usually stays in her bag when she watches Morgan train and she doesn’t need it on the bus, so she only grabs it once she’s back in her room to set her alarm for the next morning. Except… Except she completely freezes when she sees the notification on her home screen.

“No”, she distantly hears herself whisper as all air leaves her lungs.

She’d hoped, she’d really hoped, that she’d never have anything to do with this place ever again. It’s just not fair that she keeps having to deal with whatever the hell her mom is up to now every single time – it’s not fair that she can never truly start moving on with her life.

She doesn’t want to hear from these people anymore.

She wants to get a text that begins with “Hi Claire! I’m aware we’re probably the last people you want to hear from, but…” even less.

Her thumb hovers over the notification for a long, really long moment that seems to stretch on forever, but in the end, she can never actually will herself to press it and read the full contents of the text.

She finds herself calling Morgan instead.

The phone rings once, twice, and then Morgan’s voice comes through the speakers, sounding curious and concerned at the same time. Claire knows exactly why – as much as they’ve taken to texting now that they don’t have any classes and thus are not seeing each other every day of the week, calls are still a rare occasion for them, and the fact that it’s past 10pm must not be helping right now.

“Claire?”

“I got a text from New Beginnings.”

Her voice sounds robotic even to her own ears, but she’s feeling completely numb and she can’t quite bring herself to care. She just needs to not deal with this on her own, and Morgan is the only person who knows about her mom’s whereabouts. (Given the late hour and the proximity, she would have gone to Jenny instead if it were a different topic, but she’d have some explaining to do if she did that right now and there’s no way she’d be able to deal with that on top of the actual situation.)

“Oh.” There’s a bit of a ruffling sound on the other end of the line, and then Morgan speaks again. “Do you want me to come over?”

That gives Claire pause. What does she want Morgan to do? What was she hoping for when she pressed the call button exactly?

She must take too long to respond and that must give away just how rattled she is, though, because Morgan suddenly makes the decision for her.

“I’ll be there in about half an hour to an hour, depending on how long I wait for a bus.”

“Morgan, no”, Claire weakly tries to protest, especially as she hears some more of the ruffling sound that she suddenly identifies as the covers of Morgan’s bed. “It’s late and you’re already in bed. You don’t have to come.”

“I don’t have to, but I will”, Morgan replies firmly. “And I can tell that you’re not nearly as fine as you’re about to try to convince me you are, so don’t even bother.”

That gets Claire to huff out a strangled laugh. The ability to read each other really does go both way, it would seem; and she knows that if the roles were reversed, she’d be heading straight to Morgan’s place too, so what’s the point of trying to argue against it indeed?

“Text me when you get off the bus. I’ll come open the door for you.”

“Okay. I’m on my way”, Morgan says before hanging up, and Claire moves the phone away from her ear only to put it down on her bed as far away from her as she can.

She doesn’t even want to look at it right now.

“Do you want me to delete the text for you?” is the first thing Morgan asks when she gets there and Claire wordlessly points to the phone where it lies on the bed.

“No”, Claire quickly answers, feeling her pulse spike along with her anxiety at the thought of never knowing the text’s contents (or, more likely, of being unaware of the situation until ignoring it comes back to bite her in the ass one way or another).

“Do you want me to read it then delete it?”

“I don’t know”, Claire says honestly. She has no idea how she’s supposed to deal with that text; that’s the whole damn issue.

Morgan thinks for a second. “Do you want me to read it then decide whether you should too, and warm you up to it if needed?”

Claire nods. “That… That sounds like a good idea.” Like the least terrible way to go about this, at least.

“Okay.”

Morgan grabs the phone, unlocks it – she’s known Claire’s passcode for a while now –, and opens the notification without hesitation. She distinctly falters, though, as soon as she sees the text’s full contents.

“There’s a link to a video”, she slowly says to explain her reaction. “I’ll go… I’ll go in the bathroom to watch it.”

And so she does, while Claire paces up and down her room for an agonizing length of time that feels like hours before Morgan comes back with a strange look on her face.

“You mom is fine, nothing bad happened, she’s not being released, and you have nothing to worry about”, she says first to assuage Claire’s anxiety. But then, with a bit more uncertainty, she adds: “As you might have guessed, it’s a video of her – and I get that you have very valid reasons to not want to see her, but… if you’re not dead set on avoiding anything having to do with her at all, I think you should probably watch it.”

And it’s the last thing Claire wants to do, really, but she does trust Morgan’s judgment enough to push past her instincts and listen to the advice she’s given instead, so she decides to sit down on the bed with her phone in her hands and press play on the video rather than closing the tab and deleting the text like she really itches to do.

“Hi Claire”, is the first thing Breeze says when she appears on screen, looking visibly nervous. “I have no idea if you’ll ever actually watch this or if you’ll throw it away without a second thought, but on the off chance you are watching this right now, well… There are a few things I wanted to tell you. First of all, this is the last time I’ll ever try to contact you. I know… I know that I’ve messed things up with you – repeatedly – and I know that you’ve already dealt with way more in your life than you should ever have to because of me, but I promise I will never put you through that again. I’m choosing to stay here indefinitely, at New Beginnings, because I know that I’d quickly relapse as I usually do if I were to leave. I was… I was in a bad state the last time you came, and that was with a support system around me – so there’s no way I’d keep the good mental health I have right now if I was on my own. I’ve accepted that.

“Besides… I’ve realized that helping others get better is helping me too, so New Beginnings really is the best place for me to stay at. I’m here as much as an assistant as I am as a patient now, and I do like that role a lot – I have a purpose here, for the first time in my life. And I do realize that it’s unfair for me to say that, I know that raising you should have given me a purpose too, but the truth is… I’m not, I’ve never been, and I’ll likely never be strong enough to take care of just myself on my own. So, a baby? A child? I couldn’t do it. And I’m sorry about it, Claire, I really am, about everything; I know that you deserved so much better from the start, I know that I was never much of a mother to you, but there’s unfortunately nothing I can do to change the past.

“I can, however, change the future – and that’s why I’m telling you all of this. You’ll never have to see me again if that’s what you want. I’d understand. Besides, you have much more important things to worry about these days – you focus on med school and creating a much better life for yourself than I ever had, alright? You’ll achieve so much more than I ever could; I know you will. You’ve always have that drive to move forward against all odds, and it’s one of the things I admire most about you. I… Again, I’m truly sorry for everything you ever had to suffer through because of me. I can’t ever make up for it, but I hope that being away from me forever will at least give you the space you need to heal from all the harm I caused. That’s… That’s all I really wanted to tell you. I’m proud of you, Claire, and I’ll always be, on my good days as well as my bad ones – but you’ll never have to witness those again, and that’s what matters most. I’m… Okay, I think I’m rambling now, so I’m going to end this. I’ve never been good with goodbyes, though, so I guess… I guess I’m just going to say take care, and thank you for listening to the end if you didn’t delete that in the first place. Okay. Bye.”

The screen goes black for a second, and then Breeze’s face is replaced by Sophia’s.

“Seeing you walk away from her a few months ago after learning you’d been receiving weekly news about her for months was a real wake-up call for your mother”, she tells Claire. “She’s been working twice as hard to get better since then, and I can honestly say that I’ve never seen her as stable as she is these days. She’s doing really well – and I’m not saying this to get you to answer her, not at all, because she’s not expecting to hear from you after this video; though an acknowledgement that you’ve seen the video would be appreciated, I think, and if you ever do want to talk to her again, you’ll know where to find her. But you have no obligations here – not even a moral one, if that thought crosses your mind.

“Oh – before I send this, there’s one thing I do want to add to what she said, because you might cross paths with that content and I want you to be prepared if you do: another resident is helping her set up a Youtube channel where she’ll share some of her singing and hopefully, down the road, earn a little bit of money through that, so you might end up seeing her on the Internet one day. And I’d rather it doesn’t come as a surprise to you if that happens.

“Anyway, that’s all I had to say. I do hope sending you this entire video was the right call on my end, and I wish you the best of luck for the rest of your studies! Goodbye, Claire.”

Claire keeps staring at her phone for a long time after the video ends. That was a lot to take in at once, and she’s not entirely sure how to react now.

Eventually, though, she closes the video to go back to the text that she reads in full for the first time (“Hi Claire! I’m aware we’re probably the last people you want to hear from, but there are a few final things your mom wants to tell you and I think they’re important enough to share despite the circumstances of your last meeting and your wish to have nothing to do with her anymore. So here’s the video, if you do choose to watch it. Have a nice evening. Sophia”), and she sends back a quick “tell her I’ve seen it” before locking her phone and letting it drop on the bed besides her.

She honestly just feels numb all over. And if Morgan didn’t speak then, pulling her back to reality, she might have completely forgotten the existence of the outside world for a while.

“That was good news, right?”

Claire lets out a hollow laugh. “If I still believed any word she says, yeah, I guess it would be?”

“But… Why would she be lying in this video?” Morgan asks, puzzled.

“Because that’s what she does, whether she means to or not!” Claire exclaims, clenching her teeth against the anger that’s suddenly building up inside of her. “Don’t you remember Christmas? Because you were there when I got a similar message to show that she was doing better – but what did that turn into?!”

Morgan’s voice is careful when she replies. “Recovery isn’t linear, Claire.”

And that only infuriates Claire even more.

“Why are you defending her now?!” she bites out.

“I’m not”, Morgan is quick to deny. “I’m just saying that no matter how many times she fails, she’s still trying. It’s many many years too late, yes, but she is trying to do what’s best for you now – even knowing that what’s best for you might be never seeing her again, which I’m sure is not what she’d personally prefer. That’s… That’s something.” In a quiet voice, she adds: “At the very least, it’s more than my parents ever bothered to do with me.”

Claire jumps on the occasion to change the subject of the conversation.

“Yeah, but did you give them a chance to do better these days, now that you’ve all had the chance to spend some time apart? Did you ever even tell them what city you’re really studying in?”

“No”, Morgan replies, her jaw set. “You don’t know what they’re like, but, trust me, they won’t get anywhere close to my life until we’ve had some long overdue conversations – and those are not going to happen anytime soon. Anyway, this is not about me. This is about you getting the confirmation your mom will never bother you again if that’s what you want.”

“I already had that”, Claire retorts.

And that’s a large part of what’s bothering her about Sophia’s text and the video, if she takes the time to think about it properly: just how unnecessary it feels. Because yes, maybe it was meant to give her some closure, she understands that, but she’d made her peace with the fact that she’d left Breeze on bad terms already, and having to see her face on the screen – especially saying all of that – just reawakened some feelings she’d thought she’d put to rest forever. It doesn’t feel great.

“No you didn’t”, Morgan says, frowning. “You knew she was stuck in New Beginnings until she was fine enough they’d let her leave, but you never had any guarantee she wouldn’t relapse and seek you out again after that. Now she’s choosing to stay there indefinitely; that’s worth a lot more in the long run.”

Claire blinks and opens her mouth to reply, but nothing makes it past her lips. Her head is spinning; she’s suddenly coming to realize that Morgan is right, actually, and that’s something she’s not sure how to deal with exactly. How did she convince herself so damn well that she was rid of her mom forever, after standing up to her at New Beginnings; how did she not see that this conclusion was only still temporary?

Why is it that every time she thinks she can put her past behind her, it inevitably comes back in full force once more at one point or another?

But then again, maybe that’s the thing about trauma: no matter how deep you try to bury it within yourself, it’ll never stay there forever. And the fact that hearing Breeze acknowledge so many things in a goodbye video is hitting her so hard is definite proof that she’s not as at peace with her childhood as she’d convinced herself she was.

Damn. She really needs to go to proper therapy sessions at some point as well – and not just for the sake of her relationship with Morgan.

For now, though, she’ll only cling on to the positive news. Her mom got better (again), she won’t ever have to deal with any consequences again if Breeze relapses (again), and she’s fully in control of whether she ever wants to get in touch with her again (probably not, at least in the foreseeable future). That’s something indeed.

“You made the right call telling me to watch that video”, Claire finally tells Morgan, who’s been looking at her with worried eyes since she stopped replying – because that’s the truth, if she tries to be objective about the situation. “I’m just not… Can we please just go to bed now?”

“Of course”, Morgan replies without pushing, tearing her eyes off Claire to look at her bag on the floor instead. “Just give me a second to go change first.”

Two days later, as Morgan shuts down her computer and they move to lie in bed facing each other as has become their nightly routine, Claire finally gets around to asking a question that the text from New Beginnings on Wednesday brought back to the forefront of her mind.

“Why did you help me, that day on the bench, when I was stuck trying to find a way to deal with my mom?” she whispers with genuine curiosity. “Why did you go out of your way for me, when we couldn’t even stand each other at that point?”

That’s the one thing she could never figure out. Sure, Morgan could have done it just to get her back on track for their project – that’s the excuse she gave for giving her copies of her notes to begin with –, but even then… Why did Morgan not use this situation as an opportunity to get ahead of her instead? Why was Morgan so helpful that day, when she’d never so much as spoken kindly to her before?

And yes, she knows that Morgan is very far from the cold-hearted persona she tried to project to everyone back then. But that still doesn’t explain why she went as far as coming up with a solution and calling Mia, her friend from high school who’d stayed in contact with the owners of New Beginnings, instead of leaving Claire to deal with her mom on her own.

“Because…” Morgan sighs and rolls around to lie on her back, breaking eye contact to stare at the ceiling of Claire’s room instead. “Do you know why I disliked you so much at the beginning of the year?”

Thrown off by the change in topic, Claire has to collect her thoughts before she replies.

“Not really, no”, she admits. She knows why she didn’t like Morgan – between their terrible first meeting, Morgan’s attitude and her constant need to antagonize her, Claire had several justifications for that –, but now that she thinks about it… She never really stopped to wonder why that dislike was mutual before.

“When I got here, I had a very clear picture of what this year was going to be like for me. I was going to focus on my studies and my studies only, I was going to carve my own path, and I was going to do all of that alone. I wasn’t here to make friends – and I wanted to make that clear. So that’s exactly what I did, when you bumped into me in the library. Besides, I told myself…” Morgan says the next words in a murmur. “If I put myself above others as a default, no one could ever manage to make me feel less than again.”

She sighs and closes her eyes for a second after that, the admission clearly painful for her, and Claire suddenly regrets asking her question in the first place. Going down memory lane like that does – understandably – not seem to be a very pleasant experience for Morgan.

“You don’t have to tell me if—” Claire begins to say, but Morgan quickly cuts her off.

“I kind of do, though. I mean… We’ll have to talk about it at some point, so I’d rather get it over with now.”

“Okay”, Claire murmurs. She shuts up after that, and lets Morgan tell her side of the beginning of their story at her own pace.

“You were the first person my age I’d talked to since I’d arrived in San José, you know? And I wanted nothing to do with you – or anyone else, for that matter. But it did… it did single you out to me after that, especially since you were also one of the best students in our year group. That’s why I recognized you almost instantly, the day I wanted to sit with you and Shaun at lunch; and I didn’t really care, because I was used to sitting with people I’d ignore and who’d ignore me and I thought this time would be no different, but then Alex arrived and we all kind of started talking.

“And you were… so hostile with me – with good reason, I guess, but that wasn’t the point. Alex was trying his best to be somewhat friendly with me, Shaun… didn’t try to be anything other than himself whether I was there or not, other people I’d crossed paths with mostly ignored me, but you – you were hostile. You were the one who was fighting back. And I needed that, at the time – I needed the outlet, in a way that I hadn’t realized before. So antagonizing you, trying to one-up you, picking fights with you… I started doing it on purpose after that day. Because it made me feel better.

“Besides, the more I could see of you, the more you infuriated me. You were everything I didn’t like, everything I saw as weak: kind, empathetic, good with people… And still, you were up there with me and Shaun among the best students in pretty much every class, and I hated you for it. Because I thought you’d gotten it all in life – how else would you have turned into such a happy and caring person? –, and I found it so unfair that you could just have it all when I’d had to fight through so much to get to the same point.”

Claire can’t help but snort at that point, and Morgan briefly turns her head to glance at her.

“Yeah, I might have jumped to conclusions way too quickly”, she mutters in acknowledgement. “But anyway, that’s why I disliked you so much. Because you were easy to rile up, you fought back, and it looked like you’d lived an easy life that turned you good and naive, and I couldn’t stand that.”

“No one had ever angered me that easily before”, Claire admits. “There was just… something about you, the way you wouldn’t leave me alone, that made me unable to stay away as well. I think… I think we had a strange kind of connection from the start, way before we were ready to even see it – let alone do anything about it.”

There was something almost electric in the air between them for weeks, honestly, all the way back to that very first day they met – Claire still occasionally remembers the shock that ran up her arm when her fingers brushed against Morgan’s then, even though she fully ignored it at the time –, and now that she thinks back to it… She has a feeling a lot of people wondered what that might lead to in the long run, way before either of them did. For all the things it might have evolved into, though… Claire is glad their story turned out exactly the way it did.

(No matter how horrifying it seemed at the time, Pr Melendez’s idea to force them to cooperate on a project was definitely the right call, Claire is fully ready to admit, now that she’s been granted the wisdom of hindsight.)

“In any case”, Morgan continues, “that brings us to the two days of class that you missed, after pretty much bolting out of Chick ‘n’ Bread. I have to say… I was intrigued. I was also pissed off, because you bailed on me that Friday without a warning, but I was curious to know what might have gone wrong in what I thought was your perfect little life. And that’s… That’s part of the reason why I came here to give you copies of my notes. But then…”

“I went off about my mom?” Claire suggests.

Morgan nods. “And I suddenly realized that I had you all wrong. You didn’t have a perfect life – you had just as much of a shitty past as I did. We ended up with totally opposite personalities and ways to look at the world after surviving it, yes, but in spite of that… We were a lot more alike that I even cared to admit at this point. And it changed my entire perspective, because…” Morgan’s voice goes quiet, and Claire almost doesn’t even hear her next words. “I guess I wish someone would have bothered to help me, when I was stuck in my own horrible situation. But even though that didn’t happen, well, that day, I had the power to help you. So, I did.”

“Thank you”, Claire whispers. And she’s not entirely sure she ever said it before – but if she didn’t, it’s frankly long overdue. Because at the end of the day, she owes so much of the life she has today to Morgan’s decision to help her that day.

“That’s the whole story”, Morgan says with a wry half-smile, rolling to her side to face Claire again now that she’s done talking. “I told you about New Beginnings because I knew what you were going through and I had a solution to offer. Though I guess, if I’m being fully honest until the end here, that the guilt I suddenly felt for assuming your life was great when it clearly wasn’t also played a role – but I think I would have told you either way. I’m not that much of an asshole.”

“No, you’re not”, Claire agrees. “You’re really not.”

Morgan gives her a look that is aiming for offended but lands a lot more in the territory of fond exasperation – because let’s be real, where’s the lie? –, and Claire can’t help but chuckle as she reaches blindly above her head to switch off her bedside lamp.

“You know, you’re really soft, deep down”, she says teasingly in the dark.

“I am absolutely not”, Morgan retorts, successfully offended this time, without missing a beat.

Claire laughs again, then wriggles to the side until she can throw an arm around her and squeeze. “Sure you’re not”, she says, voice full of mirth. “Suuuuure, you’re not. Keep telling yourself that.”

The two weeks of holidays they have left go by in the blink of an eye, and soon enough the beginning of the school year sneaks up on them without them even really seeing it happen. The day before, though, or rather the night before, Morgan sleeps at Claire’s place because they both like the idea of going to their first class together in the morning, and that’s how they end up talking for a little bit longer than usual that day during the evening.

“Are you ready for the new year?” Claire asks at some point, kind of hoping Morgan will answer no just so that she’ll feel less alone.

But, sure enough… “I am”, Morgan says instead.

“Of course you are”, Claire replies, smiling. “You’re going to achieve so much with your archery and it’ll bring you one step closer to becoming a brilliant surgeon too – what could ever make you anything less than eager? Meanwhile, I’ll somehow try to survive the sleep deprivation again.”

Morgan smiles back but doesn’t say anything, and Claire wonders if it’s her imagination playing tricks on her of if Morgan’s shoulders tensed slightly while she was speaking. But since it’s not the first time she’s noticed little things here and there hinting at a deep but well-hidden lack of confidence in her abilities on Morgan’s end, this time, she decides to address it.

“Okay, what did I just say that I shouldn’t have? Self-doubt isn’t really your thing, usually.”

But Morgan, of course, tries to pretend that she doesn’t get it at first. “What do you mean?” she asks with a slight frown, and Claire will give it to her – she’s a good actress. But they know each other too well at this point for this little game of pretense to work with her.

“Morgan”, she sighs. “There’s something, I don’t know what, that you’re not telling me. I can tell. And it’s fine if you don’t want to, or if you’re not ready, but I just… worry. That’s all. And if there’s something specific that’s bothering you, I’d rather know so I can avoid saying it again.”

Morgan stares at her for a long moment, then clenches her jaw and looks down at her hands – well, glares down at them would probably be a more accurate description.

“You know how you inherited your singing voice from your mother?” she eventually says, which just confuses Claire even more.

“Yes?”

“Yeah, well, I might one day find out I’ve inherited rheumatoid arthritis from mine. That would be great for my careers, both as an archer and as a surgeon, wouldn’t it? Seeing as I really do need well-working fingers for both.”

“Oh”, Claire breathes out. That was so not on the list of possible scenarios she’d tried to come up with so far.

Morgan swallows hard and glares at her hands even harder, but doesn’t otherwise add anything. So Claire tries to figure out the best way to go about this… and soon realizes that, this time, Morgan might need some of the tough love she usually likes to direct at people the other way around.

“Okay”, she says calmly. “So? What are you going to do about it?”

Morgan instantly looks up to glare at her instead.

“What do you mean, what am I going to do about it?”

“What are your options? What’s your plan? Do you have anything in mind, or are you just going to wait until it happens and try to improvise something then? Because that doesn’t sound very much like you. The Morgan I know wouldn’t try to become a surgeon without knowing exactly how she was going to make that happen no matter the obstacles – all the obstacles.”

“I—” Morgan starts to say, but she seems to be at a loss for words for once.

“Pretending this is not a very real possibility isn’t going to make it go away”, Claire gently points out. “You can’t just rely on the progress of medicine between now and whenever you might develop rheumatoid arthritis to solve the problem for you. So, come on. This is something you can plan ahead for – so walk me through how you plan to deal with it if life decides to be even more unfair with you.”

“I haven’t really thought about it”, Morgan reluctantly admits. “I’ve researched the condition, but beyond ways to treat it or delay the worst symptoms, I haven’t really tried to come up with a plan B. To be fair, I’m not even sure there is one, beyond giving up on becoming a surgeon entirely.”

“Sure there is”, Claire retorts, seeing as she’s had a few come to mind in just about two minutes already – and if Morgan hadn’t been so carefully avoiding the subject for who knows how long, she would have figured that out too. “Specializing in robot-assisted surgery, seeing as that would compensate for the loss in fine motor skills; or working only part-time, avoiding your flare-ups as best as possible while doing simpler surgeries to minimize the need for precision? Both options would work – and that’s just what I can come up with off the top of my head. Now, as for archery? I refuse to believe you wouldn’t find a way to make it work. Maybe you’d have to get used to drawing your bow with… I’ve seen archers use a thing during the competition but I don’t know what it’s called—”

“A release aid”, Morgan supplies.

“Yes, that. So, what? You’d have to switch to that to take some pressure off your fingers? You’ll make it work. You’re not the type who gives up just because you have an additional challenge to fight through – if you were, you’d have done that already a long time ago.”

“You may have a point”, Morgan admits slowly.

“Of course I do. You just need to stop burying your hand in the sand to see it.”

“Hey”, Morgan complains. “Being an insensitive asshole is usually my thing.”

Claire shrugs. “You made the role reversal necessary this time, though. How does it feel?”

“I’ve seen worse”, Morgan says. And then, to make it extremely clear they should move on from the topic of rheumatoid arthritis for the time being, she immediately segues into a different one. “Oh, on a semi-unrelated note, I don’t think I told you yet: I’ve signed up to be a tutor to first-year students who struggle during the upcoming semester! The time slot I chose is on Saturday evenings so it won’t impact my schedule, and it’ll be a great way to keep everything from the first year’s curriculum fresh in my mind. Plus, professors tend to be a bit more fond of students who volunteer to become tutors.”

Claire, who understands why Morgan said ‘semi-unrelated note’ extremely well, can’t help but respond with an amused snort. “Yeah, you say that, but I’m ready to bet you only signed up because you love the idea of bossing people around so much!”

Morgan shrugs unapologetically. “So what if I can’t wait to be thought of as the head bitch in charge?”

“Only you would consider that to be a compliment”, Claire replies with a shake of her head. “But you know what? I already sympathize with those poor first-year students. Because I know from experience that you have very little patience when someone needs to have something explained to them several times over – so studying under you is not going to be a walk in the park for them.”

“Awww”, Morgan says, her voice dropping in a way that definitely does not light the blood in Claire’s veins on fire (it absolutely does). “You say that as if you don’t like to be under me.”

And wow, they sure went from a heavy topic to blatant innuendos in the span of two minutes at most, but the quick transition doesn’t stop Claire from blushing bright red at Morgan’s words all the same. (Morgan who looks extremely proud of herself about it, too.)

“Shut up”, Claire retorts weakly, but Morgan is grinning as she suddenly pushes her back on the bed – and that’s giving her trouble with focusing on anything else at the moment.

And yeah, she could push back against it right now – or roll them over, like she very often does –, but the truth is, sometimes…

Sometimes it just feels nice to let Morgan take charge.

They go to the library that first Friday of their second year of med school, without either of them planning for it ahead of time. It just… happens, like something they were always meant to do; because they want to check out books like they did almost a year ago to the day now, yes, but also… because it feels symbolic somehow. And Claire knows that they both feel it as they browse row after row side by side instead of apart.

They’re not the only people the past year changed in many many ways, though. Shaun had to deal with Pr Glassman’s insistence he go visit his dying father, Alex ended up semi-involuntarily becoming a big brother to them all, Pr Melendez begrudgingly dealt with his prejudice and became willing to give Shaun a chance to prove himself…

They’re all different from the people who first walked into this building a year ago.

But for Claire and Morgan, being in this very place again today feels special in a particularly meaningful way.

“Do you remember?” Claire whispers when they end up on the exact same spot where she bumped into Morgan just about a year ago – but what feels like an eternity ago.

“Like I could ever forget”, Morgan replies as she stops and smiles. “I came here as an ambitious and cynical young student who wanted nothing to do with anyone, but then someone walked right into me in the library, and then that same someone ended up throwing my life upside down later on in the year – so now I can’t quite pretend I don’t remember exactly how we met, can I?”

“Not really, no”, Claire replies with a quiet laughter. “Any regrets, though?”

Morgan shakes her head with the softest look on her face. “No, Claire. You know damn well I don’t.”

They kiss on campus for the first time in the library, on the third day of their second year of med school.

And, at the end of the day, Claire doesn’t know how things could have ever turned out any other way.