Chapter Text
Claire is aware that she’s loved him for quite some time.
Ascertaining the exact moment in which she’d begun falling in love with him seemed almost impossible. For all her skills in logistics, determining the most efficient course of action in emergency situations, and calculating projectiles and trajectories on the fly, her emotions were something she considered a foreign land; one she was wholly unused to and had seldomly traversed. She has always been so used to stifling her emotions down and only dealing with them at the appropriate time and place: only when her duties have refrained from their demands and have left her alone with silence for company.
In her line of work, the ability to cast aside any emotion that would befuddle her decision-making was something Claire herself believed every officer should have and maintain. And that was exactly what she abided by in all the years she’d served the Erebonian government and the chancellor—pushed them further and further away, so much that she earned herself the reputation of being so icy that Giliath Osborne himself had seen fit to give her a title to match it.
Ascertaining the exact moment in which she’d begun falling in love with him was almost impossible, because she’d pushed not just her emotions, but the mere possibility away numerous times that she’d almost lost count.
Yet the moment in which she had finally allowed herself to acknowledge the fact that what she felt for him was nothing other than love was not impossible at all; and was something that had remained so clear to her despite the passage of time conspiring with the elements to dull the sheer clarity of it from her mind.
It had come to her so suddenly. Quite like how the answer to a complex mathematical equation could pop into her brain within the span of a millisecond, or how facts arranged themselves in her head to give her the answers she needed before the long hand of a clock could even tick to mark a minute.
It was in the Pantagruel that she’d come to the conclusion. She’d been thinking of how easily his eyes had found hers across the room, how he hadn’t hesitated to cut in amidst the chancellor’s insinuations that the cryptid in Crossbell was to take her life, or at least mortally wound her, how he’d smiled at her so warmly as if it hadn’t been harrowing for the both of them to be spoken to by Giliath Osborne in front of all the people present. The thought came to her so simply then, and she knew, without a doubt, that she loved him, and that there was no use evading it anymore when it was a fact that had loomed around her for quite some time, building and building with every minute, every moment that they spent together.
At the time it seemed as though everyone else could somehow read her thoughts, so crowded the room was with their allies. Even with nothing but a straight, stern face, she’d felt it anyway, and only when he’d averted his gaze away from her to address Altina by his side did logic flood her once more. No one could possibly know what she now knew; only she did, and the revelation weighed heavily on her in the days that followed.
Although she’d decided to admit it to him in the beginning, she’d quickly realized that it would do neither of them good—not when the end of the world loomed ahead of them. It was simply a matter of timing, and then it had morphed into something else.
During the night of the banquet party in Ordis, he found her in the gardens, listened to her, held her and looked at her, and asked her to lend him the strength he’d need to face the chancellor and Ouroboros. In the imperceptible hours after they defeated both, she’d pondered what the future would be like, assessed all the possible courses it would take, and just as easily as the realization that she loved him came, the realization that professing what she truly felt would ruin the trust and companionship they’d built between them after all the trials and tribulations they’d had to face.
She believed that distance away from him would clear her mind of absurd notions and errant feelings, and for months she’d made herself scarce believing it would correct what she felt. Yet Calvard had happened, and then Remiferia, and despite all the ways in which she’d so desperately tried to fix it, somehow, fate had still brought her here, in front of him, in Mater Park on an otherwise normal Sunday afternoon.
“I love you, Claire Rieveldt,” Rean says in front of her, and he utters it so fervently that her thoughts come to a standstill.
It is this—a single sentence, a string of four words—that completely proves that neither the time nor the space had done anything to dull what she’d seen in his eyes that night in Ordis, and what she’d first felt in the meeting room in the Pantagruel.
During the first few weeks Claire finds herself half in a state of disbelief, as though what happened in Mater Park hadn’t happened at all.
Everything is a blissful but deceptive abyss, partly a fantasy; one day it will all shatter and cold reality will rush in ready to claim them both. Claire knows this. Often she thinks that she should have simply strengthened her resolve and shut him down when he’d given her the opportunity to, but she’d chosen her selfish desires instead and now has to live with the inevitable tragedy her choice will
Something will happen. It is not speculation, but fact. One way or another, Claire will end up hurting him.
Yet it remains difficult not to let herself be lulled into the blissful but deceptive abyss anyway, especially because she is with Rean, who loves her and never fails to remind her of it. It grows much more challenging every time he makes her laugh, every time he smiles at her, every time he gives her his assurances without her asking for them.
Claire finds it strange how someone who has seen her at her worst can love her so unequivocally. Almost unfathomable, even.
“Then he thanked me, but not before saying you finally seemed at peace.”
A single line is enough to send Claire reeling despite the harmlessness of it. The issue of her family, as well as her relationships with the remaining members of it, has always been a sore spot for her. Knowing Michael’s sentiments about what happened with her uncle—his father—as well as his sentiments about how she’d perceived their family’s fall is enough to rekindle feelings she’s tried to push away time and time again.
“Thank you for telling me this,” she replies after a pause, and she changes the topic to something else; something so distant from family and matters related to it. Rean eyes her with a look of concern but goes along with it, simply reaching across the table to squeeze her hand. Explanations will come later, and though he doesn’t pry—Rean never forces her to do anything—she knows he will worry about it nonetheless.
Peace is something Claire feels she’s always lacked. Getting into a relationship with Rean has only exacerbated her fears, and on most days her thoughts are turbulent, like a raging sea. She has always been adept at masking her true feelings, however.
(Perhaps adept enough that she’s fooled even Rean, who is one of the few people who can read her so well, and who seems to believe Michael’s words to be true.)
“Schwarzer?” Michael says across the table, raising a brow.
Rarely does she ever get the opportunity to sit down with her cousin in between her duties as the RMP’s commander and his as head instructor of the Thors branch campus. Today is different—Michael is at HQ to report to her about the branch campus’ recent field studies, and after he’d done so, she’d invited him to stay for a while for coffee, to which he’d surprisingly agreed.
“What about Rean?”
Michael hesitates briefly before responding, crossing his arms together as he tells her, “You should know that I’m not against your relationship in any way.”
It doesn’t come as a surprise that Michael had already figured everything out. She and Rean knew that it would only be a matter of time before anyone did, and they’d spoken about it in a relatively casual conversation after he’d come home from North Ambria. It was the next step—letting other people know.
Despite being aware of the inevitability of other people finding out about the relationship she and Rean shared, there is a sliver of hesitation that bubbles within her during the split-second it takes for her to respond. It was senseless to deny anything, and it went opposite of what she and Rean had agreed on when they discussed the matter.
“I know you aren’t,” she answers then. “But I suppose you’re… curious?”
“I am. Forgive me for being surprised when I heard it from Orlando, of all people.”
the revelation that he’d learned the news of her and Rean’s relationship from none other than Randolph Orlando makes her raise a brow. She’d have to ask Rean about it when they were to meet the next day, not wanting to discuss such a matter during their nightly calls on the ARCUS.
“I overheard,” Michael explains without being asked. “Schwarzer and Orlando were unaware, of course. While Schwarzer neither denied nor affirmed anything, putting the pieces together wasn’t difficult considering how close you seemed when you joined us on the train to North Ambria.”
Claire pauses. Rean had told her about his suspicions when he’d visited her room on the Derfflinger, and while she fully believed that neither of them had caught anyone’s attention at the time, they hadn’t managed to elude her cousin’s notice anyway. Michael has always been observant in matters that involved her; always looking out for her in his own, secret way.
“Rean and I have been friends for some time now. He’s a wonderful person.”
“I'm aware of Schwarzer’s qualities, Claire.”
“Then what do you want to know?”
Another pause—from Michael, this time, and she looks away as she awaits his reply. She lifts her mug to her lips; her coffee is cold already, and it leaves an unpleasant taste on her tongue.
“Your role during the war. Am I right to assume he had a hand in that?”
“He did. I… after Millium died, we met—rather, I met Rean—in Alster,” Claire says. “Rean can be quite persistent, as you know. What happened… It’s one of the many things I'm thankful to him for. I suppose you could say he gave me the final push.”
“I heard you spent a lot of time together during the war, but I never thought…”
“Rean and I have certainly been through a lot. Even during the civil war a few years ago,” Claire shares.
They are teetering precariously close to the topic of her servitude to the chancellor, an issue she and Michael have argued about time and time again. She half-expects her cousin to bring up the issue, as he did when she stayed in the branch campus’ field exercise camp in Ordis the year past, but he doesn’t. Instead they descend into silence, Claire quietly finishing her coffee and Michael doing the same.
It’s no secret that her cousin is lukewarm, if outright against, her connection to Giliath Osborne. Though Claire regrets how long it had taken her to break away from the chancellor, she remains grateful for the help he’d given her in light of her family’s demise and her uncle’s prosecution. He’d been the only one to lend her aid during such a harrowing period in her life, and if not for his aid, she’d have simply faded away amidst the grief and the sorrow.
“I'm glad that you seem… content. It’s certainly been a while.”
“I am,” she answers plainly. “I…” love him.
She stops before she can say it, settling on giving her cousin a half-smile. There’s a strange force that compels her to do so, as if the words should be said to Rean and no one else, and for once Claire doesn’t question herself. It’s a sentence she’s scarcely uttered since her parents and brother’s deaths, and even with everything it still feels strange on her lips whenever she says it to Rean.
“It has been a while,” she says instead.
It’s only when both their cups are long empty that either of them speak again. Their time is up; Michael has to leave for the branch campus, and Claire has to go back to her paperwork. She accompanies him to the door.
“Claire, I know you’ve forced yourself to believe that everything that happened to our family was your fault,” Michael suddenly utters just as he’s about to exit her office, “we’ve hardly ever spoken about any of it. I believe it would be… good for us to discuss it some time. If you agree, of course.”
“I’d like that,” Claire responds.
It’s a full minute before Claire can will herself to return to her desk after her cousin leaves.
She’s grown soft.
It is ridiculous how fragile she’s grown to be now that she isn’t an Ironblood, now that there is no threat of something arising that she directly has to fight against. Slowly she feels her icy exterior melting away, along with everything she’s worked hard to keep behind it. Rean would tell her that it is a good thing, that no one should have to hide behind a facade, but she’s not sure that it is. It’s one of the few things he believes in that she doesn’t. But if her icy exterior were to melt away she’d rather it be in his company.
It is easy, almost effortless, to smile and grin and chuckle and laugh in Rean’s presence. It is not part of the mask she switches on and off; all of it is genuine. Her tumultuous doubts come to a standstill in moments they spend together, her fears slipping away with the smiles and everything else. Perhaps this is the peace he—and everyone else—sees in her. Faux peace.
When he leaves the truth pounces at her, coming back with a vengeance, whispering that she deserves none of it. Not with everything she’s done.
Despite it all, Rean has never asked her to change; has never insinuated, or even implied, that he wished for her to change. All he does is love her unconditionally, look at her as though she possessed no flaws, and treat her with nothing but kindness and respect.
Claire is well-versed when it comes to grief. From her parents and brother to Millium to even the chancellor, she has had no shortage of grief in her life.
It strikes her as odd that a year has passed since Millium’s death. At times her death hurts as if no time has passed at all, and there is a void in Claire’s heart that is bereft of a fifteen-year-old girl and her combat shell.
Millium was her sister despite the lack of biological ties between them. After cutting ties with her family, she’d found a replacement in the Ironbloods, and Lechter and Millium took her siblings’ place, in a way. Despite the drastic differences in their personalities, as well as the age gap between them, she often saw Isara in Millium and wondered whether she could have had the same relationship with her sister had things not gone as they did.
The matter of who was to blame for Millium’s passing is something she and Rean have addressed time and time again, and yet it is difficult not to default to blaming no one but herself, for her inadequacy and weakness and inability to prevent her death.
Their sadness is almost palpable as they silently scale the stairs and enter her apartment, Rean never more than five reges behind her. She doesn’t know if inviting him inside her home is the right decision—it’s his first time and he’s never gone past the entrance to her complex—but something urges her to invite him in, and the words are spoken before she can think better of them. She is reluctant to part from him tonight. They are both exhausted: physically and emotionally, from work and from the gathering they held for Millium.
“Feel free to make yourself at home, Rean.”
He takes his overcoat off and slings it over his arm. Rean’s eyes scan the area, from the kitchen counters to the small dining table to the living area to the doors leading to the other rooms of her apartment. She leads him to the settee, and motions for him to sit down.
“I… I'll have to go and get something from the other room,” Claire says then. “Would it be alright if I left you here for a moment?”
He smiles. “Okay.”
It is a lie. She has nothing to retrieve; she enters the bedroom and upon closing the door behind her takes a few steps forward, stands idly just at the foot of the bed, and weighs her choices. Her brain already has the answer, has had the answer before she even stepped past the threshold to her room: apologize for wasting his time, and tell him that he’s free to leave.
He’s to report to the field exercise camp first thing in the morning, then ferry his students around the capital for their Special Ops missions. It’s selfish of her to make him stay to tend to her—not when he’s grieving himself. Even with his assurances she knows he is feeling the weight of Millium’s passing as much as she is, and if she were to ask him to stay he’ll worry and prioritize her wellbeing over his own.
Rean is looking out the window when she returns to the living area. Claire approaches him so quickly and does it so quietly that he only notices the arms around his torso and the body pressed to his back long after they’re there, despite his usual sensitivity to the most miniscule changes in his surroundings.
“Hey,” Rean says, grasping her hands. He turns around, and just as he does she drops her arms and takes a step back.
“Rean, I—” she pauses, “—I'm sorry I brought you here. I know you still have much to do tomorrow, and the tram—”
“It’s alright,” he tells her. “None of it matters.”
“Rean…”
Rean looks at her in that way, the way he does when he’s seen right through her and is worried about her, and he knows her well enough that it will be difficult to deter him no matter the explanation she gives.
“Do you want me to be here?”
“You have your field exercises tomorrow. You need your rest, and I'll be—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Rean says. “Claire… do you want me to be here?”
The air is heavy and Rean is gazing at her so intensely that the lie on her tongue fades away in an instant. If she says no he’ll respect her decision and leave. And yet—
“I do,” she responds quietly, and it comes out as more of a strangled whisper than anything.
“Alright,” he says again. “I'll stay.”
Rean bends over to capture her lips. It’s gentle at first, and then he cuts the distance between them with a single step, his fingers grasping her chin, his hand snaking around her waist, deepening the kiss. Claire brings her hands to either side of his face. It’s a long time before they part, and when they do they stay there for a while longer, eyes closed, foreheads pressed together.
This time she leads him to her room, hand clasped in his.
There is a certain sense of intimacy to it all: Rean being inside her bedroom, a place no one else besides Millium, a child, has been to. She feels as though she’s been stripped bare; as though all her secrets were on full display. It is only Rean—a person she loves wholeheartedly, and who knows her best; no judgement will come from him. She watches as his eyes do a one-over on their surroundings once more, from the paintings on the wall and the dresser next to her vanity to the bed and the nightstands.
Claire leaves to get changed. When she comes back he’s by her bedside, holding one of the picture frames atop her nightstand in his hands. She notes the coat tossed over the chair in front of her vanity and the boots at the foot of her bed as she approaches him.
She’s four steps away when he finally notices her, twisting his head to address her. Rean smiles at the sight of her, and Claire feels a bout of self-consciousness rush through her as he takes her in, nightgown and all. Never has a man seen her wearing only her nightclothes, and she could have chosen other clothes, but she knows she doesn’t have to. It was only a matter of time, anyway.
“I've got mine on my desk,” Rean shares, referring to the photo in his hands.
“I did consider placing it in my office,” she replies, ghosting a hand across the glass, “but it seemed right at home here, on my nightstand.”
Rean presses his lips to her temple. Claire sighs, bringing a hand to his cheek.
“Don’t worry about it too much,” he says then. “I can always take the tram first thing in the morning.”
They share a bed together for the first time, Rean climbing the bed and slipping under the sheets next to her, and he holds her without being asked, wrapping his arms firmly around her frame. They share not a word the entire night, and she finds comfort in the heat of his body against hers, the even rhythm of his breathing. He never lets go of her. Even in silence their grief is tangible enough that she feels as though she can reach out and touch it, and it’s near dawn when they finally fall asleep.
“Thank you for staying with me,” Claire tells him a few hours later, watching his reflection in the mirror. And then, much more serious and sincere—
“I love you.”
Rean looks up, stops fixing his shirt, smiles at her, turns around, and slices away at the arge that separates them to pull her close.
“You don’t have to thank me. I’d drop everything if it meant being with you.”
Claire is lucky. Everything—all of it—is more than what she truly deserves.
This is what Claire fears: she fears hurting those she cares about, directly or indirectly, accidentally or by choice due to the circumstances of the world.
She fears hurting Rean, and Rean having to stay with her because he loves her, and because of his proclivity to see the good in everyone—even in a person like her—he will try and try and try , without end, to fix it.
She loves him but finds herself struggling under the weight of it all anyway, the fear of somehow losing it all like she’d lost her family never far away. Claire hides it deftly, masking her most deep-seated fear under doubts that seem almost superficial in comparison, and it simmers beneath everything else, not-so-overwhelming, but still so poignantly there.
Claire fears, and because she fears, she does not let herself dream.
In the beginning it was simply Michael, and perhaps Towa Herschel and Randolph Orlando, Rean’s coworkers in the branch campus. But after having danced together in Esmelas Garden for the Summer Festival party, after having held hands while paying their respects to Millium, and after having gone back to her place together after the gathering at the Bracer Guild, she and Rean could not have made the relationship they shared more obvious.
Other than Michael, Altina is the first person she meets whom she speaks to about their relationship. It’s been a while since Claire has had the opportunity to spend time with the girl, what with Altina just having gotten home from her trip days back. She’s worried about her—Altina has made leaps and bounds with her emotions, and while her experiences abroad in the past months have helped her grow, grief is difficult.
She listens intently as Altina recounts her experiences in Liberl, in Calvard, in Remiferia, in Leman State, and the difficulties she’d encountered trying to get to Eastern Zemuria. Altina tells her that she misses Millium, but reassures her qualms by telling her that despite this she was perfectly fine. Claire is thankful for the closeness she now shares with Altina—it’s a closeness Claire should have made more of an effort to achieve back when Millium was still alive.
“Altina,” Claire says, “if you ever find yourself in trouble, please don’t forget that I'll always be just one call away. And Rean as well.”
Altina gives her a nod and a smile, but the worry in her heart remains. She’ll be back to her duties in the Intelligence Division soon enough, and will likely be sent all around Erebonia.
“Claire… I didn’t notice you and Rean were…” Altina says then, looking away.
“It’s quite a long story,” Claire responds. “But I suppose I'll simply have to tell you once we meet again.”
Altina smiles again, and Claire wraps her arms around the girl to hold her tight. She wishes—more than anything—that Millium were there with them.
“Rean? Are you done reading the page?”
Claire receives no response but the gentle sound of Rean’s inhales and exhales. His arm is heavy around her waist, his chin planted firmly on the crook of her neck. She lowers the book in her hands down the mattress and carefully turns around to look at him; Rean reflexively pulls her closer as she does this, his arm sliding up her back.
Rean murmurs something incoherent, something that sounds close to a groan than anything, before falling right back into a deep slumber. His lips are a few reges away from her forehead; she peers up at him and smiles at how innocent and peaceful he looks. The tranquility in his features makes him appear more good-looking than he already is, and she can’t help but give in to the urge to reach a hand to his face. She’s held his face numerous times before but this time is different, because he is asleep and unguarded and it’s rare to see him so calm.
Claire lifts a gentle hand and traces the outline of his jaw with a slender finger, then his lip-line, then the ridges of his cheekbone, and then the arch of his brow. Rean remains fast asleep as she does this, the rise and fall of his chest remaining even. She’s allowed to do this freely now, without the boundaries of friendship limiting her anymore. She lets her hand stay on his cheek and watches him, book forgotten.
Not for the first time, it strikes her how surreal it is to have someone love her so openly and so deeply. Rean has always seen the good amidst the bad, and Claire loves him so much that it hurts , and she wonders—again—how she could ever have something so good when her sins are glaring, her actions and inactions wounding.
The smile on her lips fades. She drops her hand. Claire can feel them—her fears—creeping along the fringes of her thoughts again, and there’s an ache in her chest that she’s come to associate with that struggling feeling, like she’s a step away from a situation that will force her to make a choice that will cause her to lose everything. She is afraid. She’s been on the short stick of things so often that it’s difficult to not live life with bated breath, especially when she has much that could be taken from her now.
Rean shifts in his sleep as if he’s sensed the turmoil in her head, and she shuts her eyes just as he plants a kiss on her forehead.
“Guess I fell asleep,” she hears him mumble, a hint of drowsiness still in his voice, and the ache in her chest only intensifies. He draws back to look at her. “And Claire did, too.”
She feels him reach out to push the book she left behind her away from them before pulling her close. Rean presses another kiss to her forehead; her heart squeezes painfully, as if it were in a vice, and she releases a breath.
Claire tucks her chin into his chest and casts—or tries to, at least—everything away. All she can do is to pray to Aidios for her to never have to experience the same pain she’d felt when she lost her family all those years past.
Do you think she’d have a problem if I took you there instead?
Her first time in Liberl is with Rean. He takes her to Ruan, presents her their itinerary only after they’ve landed in Ruan Airport from Grancel, and roams around with her like it isn’t his first time there. He presents her with a myriad of facts and trivias everywhere they go, and the experience is lovely and sweet, and it puts her at ease.
Though there are agents courtesy of R&A Research likely observing their every move, Rean being the Erebonian hero that he is and Claire being the commander of the Erebonian Railway Military Police, it’s strangely effortless to let loose—if letting loose means being affectionate with her boyfriend without caring about people gawking at them and worrying about tabloids writing about them—in Liberl. She attributes it to the fact that aside from the agents, and possibly the bracers, there is no one who knows them here. No one recognizes Rean even without his glasses, and so the decision to enjoy her time and do what pleases her without putting too much attention on the people around them is something that she just naturally falls into.
The small, selfish, and irrational part of her wishes they could stay there longer. Their time in Liberl has benefitted even Rean: he is simply a tourist here and not the Ashen Chevalier. Not even Rean Schwarzer, Thors branch campus instructor.
Rean moves the black, wooden bishop next to her white rook. Checkmate , she thinks, and within the span of a second knows that he’s won; no matter where she moves her pieces he’s effectively captured her king and has her beat.
“I got it!” Rean is grinning, and his joy is so infectious that it makes her own lips quirk into a bright smile despite her loss. A bout of affection blooms within her chest. She likes seeing him so overjoyed—perhaps she’ll buy a few boardgames, including chess, that they could bond over when they return to the Empire.
“You win.”
“Yeah,” he says then, and there’s a sheepish look on his face now, accompanied by a lopsided smile. “But it was probably just because you haven’t played in a while.”
Claire raises a brow. “I wouldn’t say that. You were quite the formidable opponent, Rean.”
Just as it is her first time in Liberl, it is also the first time since her parents and brother’s deaths that she spends her birthday not alone, not amidst a pile of paperwork, not around a railway line outside a faraway Erebonian town performing damage control. Instead Claire had spent the afternoon with Rean lounging by the beach and watching the sunset together, and even when she’d turned emotional when she thanked him, he’d simply held her and told her how much he meant to her.
Rean casts his attention at their surroundings and immediately notices the lack of people, besides the innkeeper and the cook, around. “We’re the only ones here.”
“The game did take longer than we expected,” she explains. The single game of chess they’d agreed upon after dinner had turned into three, and the other guests had slowly trickled out of the first floor of the inn as they remained focused on the board in front of them. “Would you like to go upstairs?”
“Alright.”
Rean holds a hand out for her to take, and together they climb the stairs to their room. When she enters there’s a small, rectangular box atop the bed that wasn’t there when they left for dinner. He takes a few steps past her to take it before she can, and when he turns to present it to her there’s a wide smile on his face. Her heart skips a beat.
“Rean?”
“Your birthday gift,” he says.
Rean opens it not a moment later, revealing a gold necklace with a jade pendant. “Happy Birthday, Claire.”
She reaches out to touch it with a careful hand. It’s simple, not too extravagant, but still very beautiful. The deep green color compliments her eyes; it must have cost him a fortune. Claire lifts the necklace and Rean helps her put it on, stepping behind her to clasp the lock on her nape with deft fingers.
“It’s beautiful,” she remarks, looking down at where the pendant is on her neck. “Thank you so much, Rean.”
Claire cranes her head to brush her lips against his before twisting her body to put her arms around his neck. His hands make their way to her waist, and he takes a step forward to press himself against her. His breath is warm as her tongue glides along his lower lip; she pushes his head and leans forward to kiss him deeper, the grip on her waist growing firmer.
They part with a lingering kiss that elicits a low moan from her and takes her breath away.
“I'm really happy you liked it,” he says, bending over to press his lips to hers once more.
It isn’t difficult to let herself dream here. It’s easy to sweep her doubts aside; to let herself imagine where she will be in a year, two years, three years. Claire indulges herself at least this time, wishes she could pause time to let the moment last.
The struggling, drowning feeling is far away, and she hopes it will stay that way for good.
Rarely does he ever hide anything from her.
Claire can sense it anyway: the dejection underneath the smiles he gives her, the yearning behind the embraces before they part. Yet he doesn’t say a single word, nary a phrase or a sentence that would allude to what it was that was bothering him.
Their connection is such that it’s often easy for the both of them to know what the other is feeling without the need for words. (At times she thinks she worries too much—to the point of overbearing—but Rean never complains.)
She knows it could only be from his recent mission in Sutherland, where he’d been sent to investigate a vague lead on Ouroboros. It’s a noble endeavor for Rean to continue his work for the Intelligence Division despite his past experiences with the organization—though Rean has more leverage now, very few would willingly choose to work in an organization with a history of forcing them into situations where the only choice was to say yes. He does it to help the Empire, and it’s another one of the many things she admires about him.
One morning she asks, “Did something happen in Sutherland?”
He’s immediately honest with her, which eliminates the need for her to pry it out. They are different yet the same, in a multitude of ways, and from this comes their understanding of the other. She has her doubts and he has his, and just as it pains him to know her burdens, it pains her to know that someone as wonderful and as good as him has to shoulder so many burdens from a fate forcibly, and unjustly, thrust upon him.
She listens to his doubts and his guilt as he pours it all on the table, holds him like he’s done for her so many times before, and assuages everything with a handful of words.
Claire surprises even herself, and wishes she could believe it when she says, “I've grown to believe that someday, we’ll both be able to forgive ourselves completely as we continue to atone for everything.”
Words come easy, actions do not. Claire feels somewhat of an imposter despite the admission that there are things—such as the issue of atonement—she’s yet to grasp; it’s a gross understatement, because the days where overwhelming doubt plagues her still outnumber the days it doesn’t, and she is the last person Rean should drawing his assurances from, despite her words—at least, those that pertain him—being true. The fear of hurting him along with the guilt of her sins is ever-present, and forgiveness is something she will always perceive to be undeserved. Atonement is the very least she can do, but forgiveness—forgiveness does not apply to her.
Just the other month she’d promised to tell him everything he wanted to know about her. Claire trusts him; would trust him with her life. She’s told him of her family, of her beginnings as an Ironblood, of the painful months she’d spent recuperating in the hospital in Saint-Arkh after the accident. But there’s still much she can’t say; much she continues to hide behind a facade: the fear, the doubt, the guilt.
It’s unfair for him to be saddled with someone who cannot even take her own advice. He deserves far better than someone who does not deserve forgiveness. There’s an ache in her chest and she’s struggling under the weight of her doubts, fears, and guilt again as they do the dishes in her kitchen, and as much as she wants for them to cease, as they did when she and Rean were in Liberl, they cloud her mind anyways.
If Rean notices the guilt that plagues her, he does not say. He tells her he loves her, leaves her with a grin on his face, and promises to see her again as soon as he can.