TITLE: A Conversation with Claire about Fate, Destiny, Two Souls… and Other Metaphysical Crap
PAIRING: Lindsay/Cindy
DISCLAIMER: Women’s Murder Club does not belong to me. The characters do not belong to me. They are the property of James Patterson, 20th Century Fox Television and ABC. (Well, not anymore. Jackasses.) I have no problems with that as long as I can borrow them for short bursts and use them in pursuit of my own enjoyment. I am not trying to infringe. Though, I don’t know why anyone has a problem with fan fic. After all, it really is a compliment. If anyone wants to write fan fiction about my book, feel free.

“Why so pensive, Inspector?” Claire asked, glancing up from her pile of paperwork. “No one’s been murdered today, have they?”

Watching Lindsay sit down across from her desk, in what she would clinically call a full-bodied crash, Claire tilted her head in concern.

“Are you okay?”

“Mm,” Lindsay hummed in a way that didn’t really confirm or deny. “I had a talk with Jill earlier.”

“About what?”

With a small, not particularly humored, chuckle, Lindsay looked up at Claire.

“I’ve had a lot of conversations lately. I think they’re all about different things, but then it turns out they aren’t. How weird is that?”

Not as weird as Lindsay’s behavior. Claire refrained from stating that fact aloud.

“So what are they about?” Claire asked carefully. “Because you look really depressed.”

“I’m not depressed,” Lindsay contradicted with a sudden bout of liveliness, before settling back into her chair looking spent. “Caffeine just wore off, and I didn’t get any sleep last night.”

“So you’re not depressed, but there is something wrong,” Claire reasoned.

Lindsay studied her, forcing herself into a more upright position.

“You took psychology, right?”

“I took a couple electives, yeah,” Claire nodded.

“Okay, so let’s word associate,” Lindsay said.

Claire narrowed her eyes, trying to read Lindsay, who was going out of her way to make herself indecipherable.

“As your friend, I vow to help you in any way that I can, even if you haven’t actually told me what the problem is,” Claire declared. “But just to be clear, you do realize I’m not a real shrink, right?”

Lindsay gave her a moderately honest sneer, before concentrating a very forceful gaze across Claire’s desk. She wanted to be ready for any visual clues that Claire was being less than straightforward.

“When I say ‘love of Lindsay’s life’, you say?” Lindsay queried.

Claire froze up like she’d been hit with a freeze ray. “Aren’t you just supposed to say one word?” she asked, visibly flustered. It was telling, since it was exceedingly rare that she got that way.

“Who’d you think Claire?” Lindsay mercilessly interrogated.

Claire shook her head helplessly, looking everywhere but at Lindsay, and quietly uttered what might have been the flimsiest perjury in the history of the universe. “I don’t remember.”

“It was ten seconds ago!” Lindsay exclaimed.

Claire chose not to respond to the accurate, aggravated comeback.

“Okay,” Lindsay tried again, calming to a more reasonable volume, and putting herself at Claire’s mercy. “Let’s say there are people in this world who are supposed to be together, two halves of one whole. Soul mates.”

The strange look that materialized on Claire’s face stoked Lindsay’s discomfort into flat out embarrassment, and she felt the sudden need to act a lot cooler than she felt.

“I’m not saying that’s the case,” she scoffed lightly, but despite her effort to maintain total aloofness, there was a desperate need to know in her follow-up. “But if it is… who’s my other half?”

Obviously less than delighted to be the sounding board for this particular debate, Claire looked around for a saving grace, turning back to Lindsay only when she’d exhausted every nook and cranny of her office without finding one.

“Pete?” she tried.

The lie could only have been more obvious if she had actually buffered it with, “I’m lying about this, but…”

Lindsay shook her head, not in dispute, though she knew it wasn’t true, but in refusal of Claire’s attempt at fibbing her way to a safer topic.

“Tom?” Claire submitted.

It was even more untrue. And more transparent.

Lindsay’s eyes drilled into Claire, trying to make her succumb as if she were a suspect. Refusing to bow to Lindsay’s authoritarian demeanor, Claire huffed.

“Is this about Cindy?”

“I knew it!” Lindsay shouted, pointing her finger at Claire accusingly, before jumping up. Energy renewed, she paced, in brisk, clipped strides behind the chair. “Does everyone think this but me?”

“You don’t think it?” Claire questioned.

“No!” Lindsay snapped at once, feeling instantly guilty and hypocritical. She didn’t want Claire lying to her, but apparently had no problem returning the favor.

“Just askin’,” Claire returned without a trace of anger, which doubled Lindsay’s guilt.

Carelessly, she collapsed back into her chair.

“Dreams don’t always mean something,” Lindsay proclaimed, mostly to herself. “Or sometimes they mean the opposite of what they seem to.”

Of course, the opposite of sleeping with her youngest, newest best friend would be sleeping with her oldest, most long-standing best friend. So what was she saying? If she didn’t want to sleep with Cindy, then she must want to sleep with Claire?

Only she didn’t want to sleep with Claire. She wanted to sleep with Cindy. That part she could admit. She just wanted to get it out of her system, because it was the only thing that she could think about since she was being simultaneously brainwashed by everyone in her inner circle.

“Soul mates, dream interpretation. I think we’ve gone a little beyond psychology,” Claire uttered.

“Work with me, Claire,” Lindsay exasperatedly beseeched her.

“I’d love to,” Claire countered, “but you’re talking in generalities. Maybe if you were a little more specific.”

Lindsay looked for telltale signs that Claire was being a smart ass, but, honest or not, she looked convincingly sincere.

“I love Cindy. Like a friend,” Lindsay continued quickly when Claire’s eyes expanded to unnatural proportions. “But apparently my subconscious… really wants to…”

Hesitantly looking up, Lindsay caught Claire trying to wipe the smirk from her face.

“Something amusing?” she asked.

“Not amusing,” Claire answered with poorly contained merriment. “Just interesting.”

“Yeah? What’s interesting about it?”

“It’s interesting that you would bring it up… since it doesn’t mean anything,” Claire explained in a way that plainly suggested it did mean something.

“Jill brought it up,” Lindsay mumbled in her defense.

“Really?” Claire tossed back in a mildly intrigued tone. “And how do you think Jill would know any of this?”

“That’s a good question,” Lindsay muttered.

“It is?” Claire seemed surprised. “You don’t think it’s because you are totally obvious. Oblivious… but obvious.”

Stopping just short of yelling “Hey!” like a grouchy toddler, Lindsay leaned forward on Claire’s desk.

“Obvious about what? And oblivious of what?” she inquired, menacingly.

“Oh Linds, come off it,” Claire finally lost her patience, stunning Lindsay back against her seat. “Your subconscious isn’t telling you anything your conscious doesn’t already know. You did everything in your power to keep Cindy from getting too close to you because you knew. You knew and it scared the hell out of you.”

Lindsay felt whiplashed by the abrupt change in tone.

“What did I know?” she softly inquired.

“Soul mates. Who said that?”

Lindsay dropped her eyes to the edge of Claire’s desk, gnawing her lower lip.

“Exactly,” Claire continued. “Those are your words, Lindsay. Cindy, she just popped up. You were going about your daily business. You weren’t expecting her. It was messy and complicated, and you treated it like a fluke. When Pete came along, he was the perfect cover. It was all very rational. Man meets woman, flirts, buys her flowers, asks her out on a date. They go out a few times. They have sex. You may as well have been reading a manual on how to have a rational relationship. It was a perfect diversion from the fact that Cindy waltzed on into your life and owned you.”

Slack-jawed, there was no other way to describe Lindsay’s subsequent state of immobility. Clearly, Claire had been dying to preach this sermon for some time.

She wanted to at least deny that she’d been owned, but she couldn’t even get that far.

“Cindy follows no logical pattern,” Claire went on more gently. “Hell, she can’t even follow rules.”

Warmth spreading through her, Lindsay felt a small smile threatening.

“Pete makes you comfortable,” Claire rationalized. “You know exactly what to do with him. It terrifies you that you could live a thousand years and never quite figure out what to do with Cindy.”

Claire couldn’t be all right all the time. But, then, neither could she.

“So I guess the question is,” Claire declared, her voice pure challenge. “Does Lindsay Boxer have the guts to step outside of her comfort zone?”