Shane didn't make a sound. He slowly sat up, staring at the shiny gold band with its Founder's symbol.
"We need to talk," she said. She felt sick and terrified, but she knew it was the right choice. The only other thing to do was lie, and she couldn't keep on doing it. Michael was right about that.
Shane could have done anything -- he could have run away, he could have thrown her out of his room. He could even have hit her.
Instead, he took her hand in his, bent his head, and said, "Tell me."
Eve wasn't so understanding. "Are you out of your mind?" She picked up the handiest thing to throw -- it happened to be the Playstation controller -- and Shane quickly, carefully de-gamed her. Claire thought he probably wouldn't have moved that fast if Eve had grabbed, oh, say, a book.
"Let's be adults about this," Michael said. They were downstairs again, together, although Shane and Michael were still clearly standing at opposite poles. It was getting late -- eleven already --and Claire was feeling the strain of a very long, hard day. In fact, she yawned, which only made Eve shoot her a look of absolute exasperation.
"Oh, I'm sorry, are we keeping you awake? Michael, how the hell do we be adults about this when one of us isn't an adult?" Eve leveled a shaking finger at her. "You're a kid, Claire. As in, you're still a wet-behind-the-ears dumbass who hasn't even been in this town a couple of months. You have no idea what you're doing!"
"Maybe I don't," Claire agreed. Her voice was almost steady, which pleased and surprised her. She didn't like having Eve angry at her. She didn't like having anyone angry at her. "The thing is, it's done. I made the choice, that discussion was over before we had it. I wanted you to know, though. I didn't want to -- " Her eyes met Michael's briefly. " -- lie to you."
"Why the hell not? Everybody around here lies. Michael lied about being a ghost. Shane lies about shit all the time. Why not you, too?"
Shane groaned. "Yo, Drama Princess, want to tone it down a little? Somewhere, Sandra Bernhardt wants her tantrum back."
"Oh, like you don't throw a hissy every time somebody trips your angst switch!"
Claire looked helplessly at Michael, who was having a hard time not smiling. He shrugged and took a step forward. That meant, of course, that Shane backed up. "Eve," Michael said, ignoring Shane for the moment. "Give the girl some credit. At least she told you, instead of letting you figure it out on your own."
"Yeah, and she told me last!" Eve glared at the two boys, hands on her hips.
"Boyfriend," Shane said, holding up his hand.
"Landlord," Michael chimed in.
"Crap," Eve sighed. "I guess that does leave me in last place. Right, next time you sell your soul to the evil, I get first contact! Girl solidarity, right?"
"Um -- okay?"
"Dumbass," Eve sighed, defeated. "I can't believe you did that. I worked so hard to get away from that Protection crap, and here you are, all ... Protected. I just wanted you to be -- safe. And I'm not sure this is."
"Yeah," Claire said. "Me neither. But I swear, it was the best thing I could think of. And at least it's Amelie. She's okay, right?"
They all looked at each other. Shane said, "But you won't tell us what she's got you doing that keeps you out late."
"No. I -- I can't do that."
"Then she's not okay," Shane said. "And neither are you."
But none of them had any good suggestions on how to fix it, and Claire fell asleep on the couch with her head in Shane's lap as he and Michael and Eve kept talking, and talking, and talking. It was three a.m. when she woke up; Shane hadn't moved, but she was covered with a blanket, and he was sound asleep, sitting straight up.
Claire yawned, groaned at sore muscles, and rolled to her feet. "Shane. Up. You need to go to bed."
He woke up cute, softened by sleep. "Come with?" He was only half joking. She remembered being curled up with him in her bed, the night she'd been so scared; he'd been careful then, but she wasn't sure she could count on that kind of self-restraint at three a.m., when he was half-asleep.
"I can't," she said reluctantly. "Not that I don't want to ..."
He smiled and stretched out on his side on the couch, leaving a narrow space between his warm, solid body and the cushions. "Stay," he said. "I promise, no clothes will come off. Well, maybe shoes. Do shoes count as clothes?"
She kicked hers off and climbed over him to slip into that small pocket, and sighed in relief as his body pressed against hers. She didn't even need the blanket, but he put it over the two of them anyway, and then combed her hair back from her neck and kissed her on the soft, vulnerable skin.
"You were leaving," she whispered. He stopped moving. As far as she could tell, he stopped breathing. "You were leaving, and you didn't even know if I was okay."
"No. I was going to go look for you."
"After you packed."
"Claire, I didn't even know you hadn't come home until Eve came upstairs looking. I was going to look for you."
She looked back at him, over her shoulder, and saw the desperation hiding in his eyes.
"Please," he said. "Please believe me."
Against her will, even against her better judgment, she did believe him. She felt safe, anchored against the troubled world by the heat of his body against hers.
His arm went around her waist, and she felt absolutely protected.
"I won't let anything happen to you," he said. It was a promise he probably couldn't keep, but in the night, in the dark, it meant everything to her. "Hey."