So apparently I'm now writing a fic in which paroled Claire is working for Locksmith with the El Tanika space suit people and he teaches her that it's okay to love space.
Also they occasionally have things like this:
“You should sleep, sir,” Claire says at 3:16 AM.
Locksmith blatantly ignores her. She's learned to tell by now when he is doing that, and when he's too focused and hasn't heard her, and this is the the former. He looks like shit, she thinks, unravelled all over his office, discarded books and e-readers, empty coffee mugs, bits of paper scribbled over and pens chewed in half. It's the way that his hair throws uneven shadows on his face, dark blue with the glare of the screen, that looks most familiar, that throws her back the most. Her hand leaves the light switch – she can't switch it on anyway, not without hurting him badly, the way he'd been holed up in the darkness until now – and she pulls back her ponytail a little tighter.
“Doctor Locksmith. It's three in the morning.”
“Thank you, Ms. Rondo,” he hums under his breath, fiddling with the keyboard. “You can go home. Just get me another cup of coffee, will you?”
She's too taken aback for a moment to process the request. This is the first time he has ever told her to go home, though of course he takes it for granted that she's still there when everyone else in the staff has been home for hours. She stands there for a moment, expecting something else. But Locksmith is back with his code already and she's invisible again, watching him squint at it. Her mind reaches out to predict it, his expectations and assumptions, what he isn't saying when he says go home. But she can't decipher him now, after six months, any better than she could on day one. She remembers instead about seeing her parole officer tomorrow morning, and thinks about giving Ai a call after that – just for a breath of fresh air, to hear some news from outside the facility, see how Sora is doing, all those little things. But all that is tomorrow, and the invisible Claire pushes it to the back of her mind. On the job she's someone else. Don't mix it, she thinks, this is your second chance, so you have to do it right. Go make coffee. Make yourself a mug, too. You have to stay. This is who you are.
“Sir,” she tries again, not quite sure of her voice, which is weird and she hates it. But Locksmith is clearly not expecting the conversation to continue – to become an actual conversation – so he looks up at her in surprise and she feels that unnerving white heat that is his undivided attention. “I know it's not my place to say, but you really ought to take a break. I worked myself to collapse when I was at Technora, and I can tell you it isn't pretty.” They're the strangest words to hear herself say, worked to collapse, even talking about any of it. If you're expecting sympathy, she starts to tell herself, and she's relieved when he grins at her instead. It's the self-indulgent expression, not the delighted one that scares them all.
“It's not the same thing, Ms. Rondo.” He actually half-turns and leans over the back of the chair. “You had something to prove. I don't. This is just what I do. Mrs. Hoshino told me something...” he frowns trying to remember it. It's so typical, Claire thinks, when she'd seen him memorize the new engine's component list down to three hundred types of screws. “When you spend yourself, if you become empty it's sacrifice, but love is when you become full...” then he shakes his head a little, maybe in distaste at that word, love. “I'm just fine. But I can't stand sacrifice. So if you're still trying to prove something, then you should go home.”
For the first moment, standing there, Claire can only think that this sounds enough like a self help book to be Ai. The rest of her brain catches up a second later to what she's just been told. She's tired. It's unexpected to really feel it, it'd been a while – she's alarmed then, thinking that she'd lost touch again with this ability to know what she needs, when she needs, what she wants. She needs to talk to Ai. If she's getting this from Werner Locksmith, then God help her, she needs –
She needs to leave, but she wants to stay.
You're still trying to prove something. Is this all that she's doing? I'm tired, but am I empty? It never occurred to her that they could be different things.
He's already back to his code, turning his back to her again. That's just how Locksmith works, she knows: he doesn't care how people feel about things, he sees a problem, so he solves it. She can get plenty of sympathy from Ai, her savior and sister, but her boss is a cold bastard of an engineer, and he sees materials and how hard, how strong, how flexible they can be.
She's grateful to him. Stupidly so.
So she does bring him a mug, but she brings it full of a hot milk, vanilla and nutmeg mix, zero caffeine, the liquid equivalent of a blow to the back of the head. She assesses correctly that he'll gulp it all down without noticing. He only realizes that something is very wrong about ten minutes later, about when he notices that he's having concrete trouble keeping his eyes open. She's still standing in the doorway when he turns to her, her arms crossed behind her back.
“Did you just poison me?” he asks, in priceless astonishment.
“In a manner of speaking,” Claire answers. It's terribly hard not to smile, but she is a consummate professional on the job. “Sorry, sir. But it's important to be able to tell when what you want and what you need aren't the same thing.”
“Get me coffee!” Werner Locksmith yells at the closing door, but Claire is already off to get her coat. Instead she brings a blanket and throws it over him when she's satisfied that he's well and truly knocked out in his chair. She shuts the computer down, closes the blinds, and scribbles another apology on a note to leave at the desk. Not that he'll care. She did what she had to do. He of all people would understand that.
He would understand, she concludes as she walks out into the street, and for the first time in her life, feels like it's possible to prove anything at all.
