TITLE: Between the Shadow and the Soul (12/24)
PAIRING: A veritable clusterfuck… but there is only one way it can end up.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Never was. Never will be. No profit. Just love.

(Claire’s POV)

Even if she hadn’t recognized the sobs drifting, like radio waves of misery, down the hallway as Lindsay’s, Claire would have known the instant that she saw them.

She would have known by how hard Lindsay was crying, by the way that her body shook inside the circle of Cindy’s arms, a sensation Claire had become all too familiar with just days ago under eerily similar circumstances. Feeling the tears welling up in her own eyes, she wondered just how many more hits Lindsay could take before she was beaten down so far that she would never get back up.

She would have known by the way that Cindy was holding Lindsay so close, by the hand rubbing up and down Lindsay’s back, finally traveling upward to tangle in Lindsay’s hair and gently cradle the back of her head.

It was a portrait in pain and comfort.

That’s all that Cindy was trying to do. She was trying to comfort Lindsay. In the worst possible way. At the worst possible time. She didn’t know that there was no safer place that Lindsay could be right now. And no more dangerous a place.

Because Claire knew Cindy. Well enough to know that Cindy would never purposely hurt Lindsay. And Cindy would never purposely hurt Jill. But, having heard Jill’s side in all of this, Claire also knew just how easy it would be for Cindy to hurt Jill by accident.

Cindy was walking a tightrope so narrow it was practically nonexistent. And Jill and Lindsay were balancing alongside her. Anything that Cindy did at any time had the potential to send either one of them plummeting.

There was no safety net.

And Cindy didn’t even know.

She had no idea that if Jill were to walk into this waiting room right now, she would be inevitably hurt. That she would feel inevitably confused. If Jill saw what Claire was seeing, she would read it in much the same way.

Cindy had no idea how it looked from the outside.

It looked intimate.

Too intimate.

More intimate than any kiss.

A kiss could say a lot of things. Few of them this loving.

But there was no mistaking the way that Lindsay held onto Cindy, as if her very life depended on the contact, arms wrapped so tightly around her that there was scarcely room between them to breathe.

And there was no mistaking that Cindy would take her last breath before she made Lindsay let go. She would do anything to take away Lindsay’s pain. Anything.

Anyone who saw them now knew these truths.

As guilty as she felt for even thinking it, Claire’s only real comfort came from the fact that Lindsay had been harsh enough with Jill that there was no way Jill would show up here. Jill would never have to see this. Because, if Jill saw them now, she would see everything that Lindsay was feeling. And she would have a damn hard time believing that Cindy didn’t feel the same.

If Jill walked in here, Claire knew that there would be another conversation. Jill would tell her what she witnessed when she walked into the waiting room. She would say that Lindsay was holding Cindy close, too close, almost possessively, as if there was far more between them than friendship.

And, when Claire asked her if Cindy was holding Lindsay the same way, Jill wouldn’t be wrong to answer -

“Well, she wasn’t pulling away.”