Work Text:
December 1988
Marie-Claire smiled as she shut the door behind her, juggling the gift bags she held in her hands, full of presents for her school friends. She was in a good mood, it was the final day of school before the christmas break and she had finally figured out what she wanted to spend the rest of her life doing. The fact she wanted to study geology hadn't actually been of any shock to her considering her continued obsession with the subject ever since they had studied rock formations in the physics lessons back in their first year of middle school. By now, she had researched it more and had just become more and more interested in it, realising she could do it as a career and study it in university just the night before.
"Marie-Claire!" She looked up upon hearing her name and saw her longest (and best) friend. Pierre. The two were of similar height to each other which annoyed Pierre to no end, stating it was unfair for her to be the same height when she was several months younger than him, she just laughed whenever he did that (her other friends said it was flirting, she denied it).
"Pierre! Happy last day of school this year!" She grinned at the boy, watching as a smile slowly appeared on his face too, a flush appearing on his cheeks. Maybe he was cold, she thought, the wind was strong after all. "Put your scarf on you seem cold."
"No, 'm fine, what's got you all excited?" He responded, voice muffled where he had shoved his face inside his coat. "I know it's the last day but you seem even more," He took a gloved hand out of his coat pocked and gesticulated, "more excited than normal." He turned to look at her as they started the remainder of the walk to school.
"Well," She paused for dramatic effect prompting Pierre to roll his eyes at her. "I've finally figured out what I want to do for the rest of my life" Marie-Claire continued. "I got it all figured out now, my uni degree, my job. Everything!"
"Oh really? What've you decided?" Pierre's voice sounded different, slightly intrigued but there was an undercurrent of desperation pushing through.
"Geology!" Pierre looked taken aback, she didn't understand why. "I've been more and more interested in it and last night I was watching the news on the telly, they had a section about the new machine that England's using to dig through the tunnel, then they started explaining about the rocks and how they needed geologists to make sure the rock above would hold up, then-" She paused for breath. "Then- I realised I could study it and that's what I want to do." Pierre's face had fallen slightly. "What's wrong? I'd thought you'd be as excited as I was, I mean I've got my future sorted!"
"I thought we were going to study together at uni, I know nothing about geology." His voice was quiet, barely audible. "We had a plan, didn't we?" He sniffed, reaching up a hand to wipe his face.
"I thought you'd be happy for me, I was stuck on what I wanted to do for years Pierre. And now I've finally figured it out!" Marie-Claire's voice raised without her meaning to, people around the two teenagers turned to look back at them. "You can still do the stupid law degree, but I never really wanted to, you know that!" She was almost yelling at Pierre now, tears of anger, now welling up in her eyes.
"But we had a plan! We were going to study law, we were going to spend the-" He cut himself off. Pierre's voice was more sad than angry, he was quieter than Marie-Claire.
"No Pierre, you had that plan." Marie-Claire responded. "I didn't, I didn't even really agree to it! You thought I did and then planned our entire lives around it! How fucking stupid was that?! I wouldn't even pass doing a degree in law, God knows I suck at writing essays." She muttered that part to herself, speeding up, she just wanted to get away, get to school so this day could be over already.
"Are you leaving?" Pierre shouted after her, struggling to catch up. "I'm sorry alright, I didn't know you felt this passionate about the fucking rocks or whatever-"
Marie-Claire didn't respond instead heading towards the school gates, bee-lining towards her friends who immediately looked concerned, she talked to them, taking one last glance at Pierre before turning back around again.
Marie-Claire breathed out as she waited for someone to open the blue door. She held Pierre's christmas gift in her hands. It was Pierre who opened the door. "Marie-Claire! Wh- what are you doing here?"
"Giving you your gift Pierre." Her voice was soft but harsh, she placed the gift into his hands, before moving to leave.
"Wait- Why?"
"It's Christmas after all Pierre, I'm giving you the gift I bought. Merry Christmas. Oh and by the way, please don't call. Maman and Papa are getting rather fed up with the phone ringing all the time.
December 1989
Pierre sat alone at his desk, the sun had set hours ago but he couldn't stop studying, he had to pass this test. It was a physics test and he had to pass it so he could move up into the advanced class, which he had to do so he could get into university for geology. After Marie-Claire had given him his christmas present (law textbooks which he never could've afforded on his own), they hadn't spoken at all, she hung up every phone call from him and ignored him when they were at school together. Even in the summer break they hadn't spoken and they used to spend every waking moment of it together.
Then the new school year started and they were going to high school. The two of them had originally planned to go to the same high school just as they had done with pre-school, primary school and middle school but that didn't happen. Pierre had the sneaking suspicion that Marie-Claire had finally given into her parents request and chose to go to a private school and it was almost entirely because of him, especially as most of her friend group had also chosen to go to the same school as him- and gave him dirty looks anytime they passed each other in the corridor.
Pierre sighed, he wasn't good at geology. He had started to do it over the summer to try and get Marie-Claire to forgive him but then the cost of him doing a highly ranked geology degree at a public university was a lot cheaper than the cost of him getting a highly ranked law degree which would have had to have been at a private university, so, he had to do geology.
December 2022
Pierre sighed, looking over his work, it wasn't too hard it was just monotonous at this point. He had been doing the same job ever since the channel tunnel opened and it was boring at this point. His job on the channel tunnel was at least interesting despite the fact it was really awkward considering Marie-Claire's determination to not talk to him outside of a work context. Then they had hit the middle, meeting the English geologists which included a man called Cliff. It had seemed that Marie-Claire had formed a very close bond with the man very quickly and had run off with him.
He sighed again, taking a sip of his now too cold coffee, glancing up at his computer screen as he received a new email. That wasn't normal, it was probably a colleague asking for help he rationalised, when she worked there, Marie-Claire would often be the go-to for help but now it was him only due to the fact he had been working there the longest. He shook himself out of his thoughts of Marie-Claire, he should probably read this email.
'Hi' It read. 'I'm sorry you're receiving this email so late, I tried to look to contact you before the funeral happened but I couldn't find any details until today. I don't know how to formally tell you this, but Marie-Claire is dead. I know you two were close she liked to tell stories of her childhood and a man called Pierre to our son. I'm sorry you couldn't come to the funeral, she wanted you there, I know that much. If you ever wanted to contact me, you can, I'll put my number below. I'm sorry. -Cliff'
Pierre's heart fell. Marie-Claire was dead. And he didn't go to the funeral. He couldn't say goodbye to her. Their last non-work conversation was an argument. Pierre wasn't sure if he believed that Cliff couldn't find his contact information, maybe it was a matter of simply not wanting to, not wanting Pierre to say goodbye to the friend he had held the longest time. Maybe Cliff was lying about Marie-Claire telling stories of her childhood and instead knew of Pierre through her angry rants about him instead.
Or maybe Cliff was telling the truth and he was simply a grieving father. Pierre didn't know, he didn't know what to feel. He needed to pace, to move to do anything but to sit and decipher his feelings. He moved up and around his tiny flat before settling in the living room. He looked over to the coffee table, the law books were still there, and sat innocently untouched. He glared at them, he had to do something. A plan began to form in his mind, he needed to call a colleague then he needed to get himself back into the channel tunnel.