INTERLUDE: I Don't Feel It Anymore

Milwaukee, Wisconsin || June 19, 2017

The street looked about the same as it had in his mind, the way he'd pictured it after looking it up on Google's street view. Over the last few months, he'd thought about coming here more and more often, always managing to talk himself out of it. Continued denial was easier than facing the truth. Something had clicked in Virginia, that last piece of whatever had been broken, whatever had been slapdash put back wrong after he'd cut and run from Sin City was finally back and he could see this for what it was. Sighing, he swung his leg over the bike, settling the kickstand before finally getting off. The metal was still pinging in the stillness, still cooling as he reached up to push his shaking hand through his sweat-soaked hair, trying to arrange the unruly strands before finally fishing out his phone.

His thumb shook slightly, hovering over the name FIREFLY in the contact list before he double-tapped her name, keying out a quick message.

Not sure which apartment you're in. Guess I forgot to write that down. I'm outside.

He sent it, biting his lip before adding.

Need to see you. Please?

He gave it ten seconds or so before adding a third thought.

Don't have to talk. Brought a spare helmet if you wanna just go for a ride.

Closing his eyes, Lex tried to tamp down the anxiety clawing at his insides, that voice in his head telling him that this was the worst mistake he'd ever made. He knew that wasn't true. The worst one had been letting it go this long and now it was exactly two years to the date of when it had all begun. Of all the shit timing in the world. Would she remember?


After a few moments Claire came out of the building, pausing to put something in the frame of the door that let it close but not latch before she went down the small flight of concrete steps and looked around. The heat made her yawn a little, they'd had an early out practice scramble since they were gunning for a shot at the playoffs and her day had stayed busy, she had laundry in the apartment's laundry room and was thinking about getting new cleats later on. Her virulently pink sandals slapped on the sidewalk as she spotted where Lex had parked his bike, and she narrowed her eyes slightly to better focus in the bright light. Her jeans were out at the knees, faded almost white, her tank top bore the logo of the Mayhem, and she spared a moment at the irony of the team's name considering who had trained her to wrestle, when she still did that.

She came to a halt several feet from him and crossed her arms over her chest. "You look exhausted. If you were going to finally come up you should have called. Flown up, maybe?"

Claire paused, her expression wasn't cold, just set. "So you stopped running, and you chose today… of all days, to make your...what, statement?" She sighed, and uncrossed her arms and held up her hand. "I'll hear you out, if you want to say something. But you know, it's really high time we stopped being bad for each other and just let go."

"Took me this long to get here," he replied, standing his ground, feeling an ache in his chest at the sight of her. "Wrestled in Virginia an' I took the bike there so I could stop in Baltimore. See Ray Chandler - dunno if you remember him from Larry's wedding. So made sense to ride back." He shrugged, sighed as he scuffed the toe of his motorcycle boot against the pavement, not bothering to look down. Instead he maintained that eye contact, unblinking for a few more seconds before he broke the silence again.

"I had to see - had to know - can't live like this, Claire. Like strangers. Can't keep tryin' to throw rocks in a frozen lake looking for ripples'at aren't there. So…" Lex swallowed hard, "just gotta ask a couple things an' then…" he paused, eyes flicking away for a split second, "I'll go."

He waited for her to object, her body language still so unwelcoming that denial was starting to shift over to acceptance already. "Has the soundtrack changed?"

"You already know the answer, Lex. It's like, you know, but you ask anyway and hope for something. Almost as if you're scared of your instincts." She paused, thinking for a moment. "You know, how you called me Firefly, because it was something you associated with something good, and happy? But when you think about it, what do most kids do with fireflies? They stick them in a jar and shake them around to make them light up, because they're scared of the dark, or they're cruel, or they just don't understand what happens when you put something in a jar just because it's pretty."

She relaxed her stance just slightly. "You're not a cruel person at heart Lex. That's something that could change, but hasn't. One of the good pieces."

He nodded slowly. "It was easier to stay away. An' I think you knew that was gonna be my fall-back stance, deep down. 'Cause it's… y'know, the worse it gets, the more I wanna go back to the good things, rewind and relive the fantasy. But it wasn't - I guess I owe you a thanks for that, anyhow."

He glanced back at the bike, at the chrome covered in road grime. "There's no going back, is there?" The question was rhetorical as his gaze moved back to hers, "I gotta take the lid off. Let you go before you suffocate - goin' with your metaphor. Even though I think you already escaped through one of the holes months ago and I was just too caught up in my dumbfuck fantasy to even realize."

"Reinolds, you know. Clever French foxes after all." Claire looked back to the building to make sure her makeshift doorstop hadn't shifted before she looked back. "There's no going back, Lex, because you shouldn't ever look back. You know your classics better than most'd give you credit, you don't want to be that guy pushing a boulder up a mountain over and over again. Now, at least you have some good things. Maybe? The next one you don't get so caught up and you see things in the windshield instead of the rear-view. There's still lots of good things ahead, if you want them to be. At least, should."

"One door closes. Another opens. That's the sayin', right?" He chuckled softly, shifting his weight like he wanted to move in closer to her. For once, he wasn't overcome with the panic, with that feeling of drowning as he fought to breathe, fought to move. He just felt a profound sadness. "Y'know I'm always gonna love you. In some way. 'Cause you," his voice broke and he cleared his throat, determined to get the words out no matter how much they hurt, "you were the first one who saw me. Didn't see some shapeless blob of clay you could mold into some subservient, headfucked piece of shit. You…" he couldn't put the rest of his feelings into words, still couldn't break through that mess in his head even after all the miles of silence he'd travelled across just to be here.

"I know. But you see it, don't you? Because I could, there's going to be someone else that can. More than that though? The real important part is that now you know that you're not what they said or wanted to make you. If you think about it, that's a pretty powerful place to be standing. So, keep your feet and don't slip." A tiny hint of smile came and went. "Everyone, anywhere, they have something wrong with them. But you know, they don't have to let that be all they are, and neither do you. I think you get it now."

She stepped back, ready to turn and go back up the steps but paused a moment. "You get clear, you know? See things outside the red, see things how you can make them be instead of what they want you to accept. Be careful, on your way back. I'll see about some things, and then that'll be that."

"Keep seein' yourself among the stars," he replied, that sad smile back on his lips, "and I'm not gonna… this'll be quiet, okay? You know I won't make it into a spectacle because it's already… this is just loose ends tied." He dragged in a deep breath, hands stuffed into his pockets so he didn't try and reach for her. "It's time to let it go. The last of it, I guess."

He turned back towards the road, laying a hand on the seat of his bike, his voice coming out soft as he recited an old movie line, twisting it up to suit them. "We'll always have California."

A slight lift of her lips and she nodded before she turned back to the building. "The sea always changes, but it's always the same."