~1813~

As the months of 1812 slipped away and made way for 1813, it was Sean who began displaying much of the melancholia that was normally so prevalent with Claire. In those months since he had foolishly let himself rip that one secret from her head, and then promised her that he would not, Sean’s guilt became a constant companion of his just as Claire’s had always been hers. More worrisome than even that fact was that when he wasn’t feeling guilty about violating her mind and then promising not to, he couldn’t help even darker thoughts about that secret itself.

It was very true that Claire had not actually let him kill the only child they ever could have had. However, it was also true that she had believed that was exactly what she was doing on the night of her embrace. And the fact was beginning to claw at Sean as well. He would not and could not let himself hate her for wanting to make such a sacrifice in exchange for their ability to love one another forever; but it still tore at him that she did believe that she was ending that life as well as her own. And therein lay the inner battle of emotions that had been waging in his head for months now.

It had gotten to the point that even though he had argued so adamantly against Claire avoiding him for what time they still had; he ended up being the one avoiding her even during those very few moments of time when he actually could have spent an hour here or there at her side. And that he felt guilty about as well, knowing that his absence already was chipping away at her even when he had no choice in it, let alone if she were to find out that he had found himself choosing not to be near her, even when he could.

Then, as though his thoughts were made manifest, Sean found himself looking toward the door of the study where he had been resting his elbows upon the desk, his head in hands which were tensely wrapping his hair in their fingers. When Claire did poke her head into the room, her expression showed more than a bit of surprise that he didn’t appear to be doing anything more than just sitting there in silence.

“So, I’m not interrupting anything?” Claire managed her quiet greeting as she stepped through the doorway.

Sean had a bit of difficulty coming up with his own greeting just then and decided on “just thinking.”

“Thinking?” Claire repeated, though her tone was a bit sharp, or maybe he had just imagined it, after all.

Ignoring that sharpness as best he could, Sean moved on “something you forgot to mention at the meeting last night?”

“Because I guess that would be the only reason I have for coming to see you?” Claire couldn’t help that response in the face of his slightly impersonal greeting.

Sean’s eyes closed a moment against the obvious hurt in her tone. He then managed a reply, “it’s just that you don’t often come see me down here.”

“I guess I always feel like you don’t want me bothering you” she told him as her volume as well as her eyes dropped.

Trying to force back his own hurt that she would feel that way, despite any truth there may have been to his recent avoidance of her, Sean moved on “so what is it that you needed?”

Claire couldn’t help scoffing as he continued keeping any sort of kinder or more personal words from crossing his lips. She then forced herself to speak again, despite the way his manner had been making her bristle that night “is this really the way we are now, Sean?”

“The way we are?” Sean repeated if for no other reason than to buy him time to think of any response he could to that particular question.

Claire was quiet a long moment, as she tried as hard as she could to force back her own emotions before allowing any more words to pass her lips “ever since I asked you not to use your ability to see into my head, you’ve barely spent a moment near me” she pointed out, proving that even without possessing that ability herself, she was still extremely perceptive when it came to the man she had spent over two centuries with. She then added one more statement “is it really that difficult for you to keep that promise?”

“I just…” Sean began, though his words fell short. He then attempted to begin again “it’s just knowing that there’s something that you think you can’t trust me with… it makes it difficult to not wonder what it is that you think is so bad that you can’t share it with the person you’ve shared everything with for over two hundred years.”

Claire sniffled slightly as she looked over at him and spoke “so that’s your plan? Try to make me feel guilty enough that I’ll either tell you on my own or release you from your word?”

Sean then looked down with a shake of his head, “that was not what I was trying to do, Claire. I was just trying to explain my own distantness” he stated with a semblance of regret in his tone, despite all the other feelings he may have had about that secret of hers.

“And you wonder why I never wanted you to train your mind to do that? Just look at what it’s done to us” she finished sadly, eyes down.

“I know you have good reasons for hating that I can do what I can do now. But I also know that it’s something I need to be able to do to keep all of us, especially you, safe from harm” he argued once more, though weakly. He then had to add “when I first considered training myself to do this, I never in a million years thought that there was something inside your head that you were this terrified of me seeing. I never thought that you would have any reason to hate me learning to do this so much. I thought there weren’t any secrets between us, not truly.”

“There’s that guilt again” was the only response Claire offered as she kept her eyes pinned to the floor.

Sean shook his head again, “believe me; I’m not trying to make you feel any guiltier than you already have felt for so long. I’m just trying to explain to you why I never thought that this ability would do this to us.”

Claire was quiet for another long moment before she sighed and spoke again, “the worst part is, I want to just tell you to go ahead and look. Go ahead and find out what it is that I’ve never wanted you to know. But I know that if you did find it out…” she sniffled again, “keeping this secret is driving us apart. But letting you know about it… that would… I just... I don’t want to spend my last days or weeks or months, or any of what time I have left with you hating me or feeling like you can’t be near me… but either you know and hate me, or you don’t know, and hate me… those seem to be my only choices anymore” she finished tearfully as she hurried out of the room once more.

That was when Sean buried his face in his hands as she retreated from his presence once again. He could relate all too well now to keeping a secret from her that would make her hate him; which is exactly what she would feel for him if she knew he had actually ripped away her one secret. However, Sean himself never had to worry that she could rip his own secret away from him, even if she had learned to read thoughts as he could; she never would be able to use that ability on him, whether she wished to or not. And now he truly understood that fear she had always had of becoming close to any Kindred who was stronger than her; which of course is what Sean was. He had a completely unfair advantage over her in all things psychic, and she had endured that for all their time together since their embrace, trusting that he would never use those powers against her, the way Awsha had done to him; which is exactly what he had indeed done, now.

Sean spent over an hour thinking long and hard over his recent actions as well as Claire’s actions of long ago. After much inner debate, he finally came to the conclusion that their child was long gone and he would never have that child back. Though Claire was not gone yet, even if fate was planning on taking her away from him at any moment; she hadn’t been taken yet. She was not lost to him as their child had been, unless of course he let her slip away; which she was so very close to doing already.

Sins of their past aside, Sean already had a taste of living without Claire. He had lost her to that opium haze for ten years, and then lost her again because of another sin he had committed against her. And both of those times that he had been forced to live without their bond had been the darkest, loneliest, most horrible times of his entire long life. And he was still so terribly close to losing her again because of that awful prophecy. Sean also knew that he would never forgive himself if he allowed her to be lost to him even before that fate had been forced on them. He had to keep her in his life no matter what crime she had believed she committed in the past; and no matter what crime he had committed against her much more recently. Letting a love such as theirs die would be an even greater crime that he could not let himself commit, knowing how very much they both needed one another in order to even go on at all.

Calling upon every bit of inner strength he had to force away guilt and blame and all the rest of it, Sean moved out of the room to go and find the one thing he knew he could not bear to ever be without for long. Though as he ascended the stairs, he almost ran straight into the tiny brunette beauty Emilia. She immediately smiled up at him with all that love forced on her by the bond of his blood.

“So, did you say yes?” Emilia greeted him, craning her neck to look up at where he towered over a foot taller than her height of only 5’2”.

“Yes?” Sean returned her question.

Emilia just giggled up at him, unable to curb her urge to brush a long blonde hair from his shirt as she stood close to him there on the stairs; “about the saloon” she offered that further explanation.

“Saloon?” Sean narrowed his eyes at that.

“That’s what Claire said she was going downstairs to talk to you about earlier” Emilia offered with another smile.

“I guess we never got that far” Sean admitted distractedly as he cast a glance up the stairs.

“But things are ok then? Between you and Claire, I mean?” Emilia bravely asked, never quite able to push down the feelings she had for him due to that bond.

“Ok?” he asked as he narrowed his eyes down at her again.

“Just I haven’t noticed you two spending much time together lately” Emilia offered quietly.

“I haven’t spent much time with anyone lately” Sean replied, his tone cooling slightly. He knew and understood that the girl felt as though she had very strong feelings for him; but considering all the other stresses he was under right then, he found himself lacking the patience to deal with those feelings of hers at that moment.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you” Emilia stated in a smaller voice, “I just thought that if you were feeling lonely, or anything…” she took a shaky breath, “I mean since Claire and Finn are…” she then just turned her eyes downwards instead of finishing that sentence.

“Claire has more time to attend to her servants than I do” Sean stated a little more roughly than he had originally meant to.

“Sorry, I was just trying to help…” Emilia sniffled as she began to turn away, the tears obvious in her blue eyes.

Sean couldn’t help sighing as he hated seeing others in any kind of pain; especially pain he had caused. He then gripped her wrist and pulled her back toward him. The touch did cause Emilia’s breath to catch, but she still didn’t seem to have the strength to look back up at him just yet.

“No, I’m sorry. I’ve just been dealing with a lot of other problems right now and I’m honestly not angry with you. I just…” Sean attempted to comfort her as best he could, considering his own mental state then. But upon receiving the slightest bit of sympathy or concern from her regnant, Emilia gave into her desire to press close to him and move to her tiptoes to place a kiss over his lips.

Sean froze a bit at the feel of her slightly trembling lips covering his own. He should not have been all that shocked by her advances, all things considered. He had just failed to realize that her and Finn had apparently not nearly been as attentive to each other’s needs as they had been in the past; considering Finn was now spending most of his nights in Claire’s arms instead. As Sean tried to process the most appropriate reaction to Emilia’s affections, he couldn’t help sensing Claire’s presence as she moved across the landing at the top of the stairs where Sean and Emilia now stood. Immediately averting her green eyes, Claire hurried to move down the hall toward their chambers.

Sean sighed heavily as that jarred him enough to break off the kiss with Emilia. He truly did not need this added stress to he and Claire’s relationship right then. It was true that he doubted that Claire would have been all that upset at a simple kiss between he and his blood bound servant, if their own relationship hadn’t been in such dire straits at that particular point in time. He somehow knew that the kiss would not exactly be taken in the best possible way considering what had transpired between him and Claire earlier that same night.

“Emilia” he stated as he placed his hands gently on her shoulders and pushed her slightly back from him, “I need to go talk to my wife right now” was the only explanation he could offer her as he quickly moved away to do just that.

Emilia took a deep breath to force down her own sadness as she heard Sean move down the hall and through the door to him and Claire’s chambers. She then sniffled slightly and started back up the stairs and down the hall herself. As she reached the door to the adjoining room where Finn spent most of his sleeping hours, she took another deep breath before entering.

The clock in the hall was striking midnight as she closed the door behind her and looked over at where Finn had been making an attempt at getting some sleep before guarding Claire’s slumber the next day. Emilia sniffled again as she moved to the bed next to where he stirred at the feel of the mattress moving beneath her.

“Claire?” Finn mumbled as he rolled to his back and squinted his eyes in the darkness to focus on his companion.

“Sorry. Guess you’re the second man tonight to be disappointed that I’m not her” Emilia mumbled under her breath.

“Emilia?” he asked with surprise as he sat up, pushing reddish brown curls from his sleepy blue eyes.

“You mean you’re not staying in Claire’s room tonight?” she replied, looking down and nervously fumbling with her nails.

“She was going downstairs to talk to Sean; so I decided to try and get some sleep tonight instead” he offered, suppressing a yawn as he sat up straighter.

“Instead of making love to her again?” Emilia supplied the rest of his sentence.

“Are you actually upset by that?” Finn had to ask, easily noting her sadness.

Emilia just scoffed sadly, “not because of… I just don’t understand how…” she shook her head.

“How what?” he asked with concern.

“How you managed to make her care about you” Emilia whispered.

“Sorry?” Finn asked with confusion.

“I don’t understand what you did to make her want you back. I mean how you even got her attention, let alone became her lover. I’ve tried so hard with Sean and…” her voice trailed off.

Finn sighed slightly as he thought on her question. He was still quite shocked that Claire had become his lover as well, so it was easy for him to understand the position Emilia was in with Sean, as he had been in that same position himself only a year prior, and for a long time before his dream of becoming Claire’s lover had finally come true, amazingly so.

“Honestly, I think Claire’s just been unbearably lonely since Sean became Prince. And I was there” he admitted as he gently touched Emilia’s long brown locks, proving that even with the bond, he still understood that his relationship with Claire was a lot more one-sided than he’d often let himself admit.

Emilia sniffled slightly as she finally looked over at him in the darkness of the room, “Claire’s not the only one who’s been unbearably lonely.”

Upon hearing her words and the sadness in them, Finn then moved to take her lips with his own. If he couldn’t help Claire with her despair that night, then maybe he could at least help another beautiful sad girl with hers.