thecapitol | [open] and I know life is getting shorter, i can't bring myself to set the scene

Who| Clara Murphy and ~~Tom's Angels~~ D10 primarily, but totally down with interlopers popping in
What| Clara's open office hours!
Where| D10's common area
When| After the mini arena
Warnings/Notes| None yet, will add any that pop up!

While Clara would hardly say she's been complaining about having her hand and eye restored to her (because, really out of all the things that have happened to her while she's been in Panem, that's one of the few things she's completely okay with), it's still weird to have them back after almost a year. And knowing that her Tributes have never seen her with two flesh and blood hands and eyes is slightly boggling to think about.

Which is why whenever someone passes through, Clara can be seen holding something in her right hand, whether it's a cold drink, or a pen, or the tablet that she has her meticulously organized notes on D10's amazons and which companies are interested in having them represent their products. It's distracting to the point that, whenever she finally notices someone passing through, she can't help but be slightly taken aback.

"Oh, hi. I was just doing a little bit of work," she says, trying not to come off as too startled. "Do you want to take a seat? We should probably talk."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She let her thumb run over the back of his hand, giving him a sympathetic look. "We've all done things we regret. That doesn't make you a monster." And she wasn't sure what it said about her that, even if she should, she couldn't regret letting OmniCorp save Alex, that she still stood by her choice.

"That's true." That didn't change the fact that she still felt like she was cheating on Alex by feeling this way. At least with Rose, she had Alex's permission (even if he was under the Capitol's control and wasn't exactly in his right mind at the time), but this? This was completely uncharted waters. "And none of that changes the fact that I really want to kiss you right now."

Which...could be a terrible thing to say in this moment, but the thought kept coming back to her sitting across from him.

James would have said something comforting but he was stunned by the confession. It's as if the fog in his mind, one that sometimes invaded his perceptions of reality, was cruelly lifted without warning. They were both metaphorically bare to each other and...he can't deny the fact that he feels the same way about her. The fact that they were vulnerable and seeking someone they could commiserate the loss of their spouses and their inability to move on.

"I..." I euthanized my wife, twice...I'm a bad man. I shouldn't be allowed to feel this. I shouldn't be allowed to be happy! Is this a punishment too? His breathing became slightly faster as the surreal horror of falling for someone else set in. For once, he doesn't care the cameras are rolling and capturing this: James took the leap.

"I want to kiss you too. But I don't deserve it, I know I don't." He answered truthfully.

Clara wasn't sure what to expect as a response. A 'me too?' An 'I can't, I have too much baggage and still consider myself married?' Something like that (if only because those were both things she was feeling as well).

She wasn't expecting an 'I don't deserve it.'

"You need to stop blaming yourself for whatever happened before you came here." Which was ironic coming from her since she still carried so much baggage from her life in Detroit. "What happened to your wife wasn't your fault." Oh Clara, if only you knew the truth.

"It was my fault," James clarified as much as he could without revealing the actual series of events, "She had a terminal disease and I neglected her, I wasn't all there by the end, and..." He wanted to confess, he felt that Clara deserved the truth from him rather than some gossip rag.

"I let her die."

CLOSE but no cigar. In reality, James did everything him and his father could before the events of Silent Hill happened. He researched the disease, called experts but they all gave them three years maximum.

"You didn't make her sick," Clara said sweetly, but with an edge of steel in her voice, as if she was trying to dissuade him of his guilt through her words alone. "You were scared and confused and trying to deal with something horrible and sometimes that makes people do things they regret." Like how she still felt guilty about not being there for David as much as she should have been because she was being so swallowed by her own grief at the beginning. "You can't blame yourself for not being superhuman."

What I did to her wasn't human.

It's those words that haunt the man to this day and he desperately wanted to let go. Because he wants to make Clara happy, but he fears that he will commit another atrocity to her. He placed his hand on her cheek and offered her a softer smile.

"I can try but in the end, what happened...happened. And you can't blame yourself for your own losses too."

Widowed spouses know each other when they see one, and their ever-present guilt is always there. Maybe they could've done more, or spent more time with their loved ones.

"I really wish I could kiss you."

Clara couldn't help but hold her guilt close. It made her feel as if she deserved not to have Alex anymore, as if that somehow made everything better. (It didn't.) At this point, she doesn't know what she blames herself for these days. Sitting in that room with Dr. Norton showing her the extent of the damage that had been done to Alex in the bombing and making a choice for him that she still stood by being the right one? Not playing the Capitol's game enough that they decided that turning Alex into their pawn was the right choice? Not helping Alex find a way to escape that day in Peacekeeper HQ and instead trying to talk him down in an attempt to help him find a way to get control over himself?

"I'm not so sure about that," she admitted quietly. "I have a lot to feel guilty about."

She wans't sure how to react to his own confession. This was something they both wanted, it was a good thing. So why did it make her feel so terrible? So much more guilty?

As if she was a woman possessed, she stood up from her seat at the table and crossed over to him, placing her own hand on his cheek before leaning down to kiss him softly.

James allowed the kiss to happen and for a second, it was as if those horrible deaths in the Arena, the events of Silent Hill, Mary's death never happened. The sheer affection and spontaneity of it all, it felt like they were home in South Ashfield, him coming from a day at the store and helping his father Frank with the apartment building...he could hear Mary practicing her piano playing.

It was overwhelming enough that Sunderland broke the kiss with "I-I want t believe this is real. This is one of the few times it feels like it's not a dream." He rambled before he puled away. The illusion disappeared as soon as he opened his eyes. This wasn't Mary this was someone else's wife...

Unlike James, Clara had no delusions about who she was kissing. The way their faces lined up when they kissed was a world away from her and Alex, his lips weren't right, there was no hand going right to the small of her back (though that last one may have changed now, but she wasn't sure she'd ever get to know now). That didn't mean that the kiss was bad by any means, just that this man was not her (late, the thing she had to keep reminding herself every time she felt the guilt creep in) husband.

She did her best to mask the look of hurt that crossed her face when she realized where his mind had gone. "No, it's not," she said quietly, pulling away from him. "I...I'm sorry, I shouldn't have...I should go."

James sighed as he realized that his madness, his lack of resolution just stunted, possibly killed any real chance of happiness he could ever have with Clara. Or maybe his only chance at her seeing him a somewhat broken man and not the murderer that he was. She knows who is still in his mind but not for the reasons that she thinks.

"Please don't be sorry for w-what happened here," he said, as the first real thing he's ever said, a low-key rebellion on his part. He once had a dream while he recovered from his first Arena death that he showed a different path in his life. That he had the chance to leave Silent Hill with Laura in tow, and into a bright new day.

"If it helps, I want to see you again, Clara." he said as he stood up, his mind finally choosing that bright day over the murky depths of Toluca Lake.

She couldn't help but be sorry, not just for causing him distress and feeling like she took advantage of him in a bad moment, but for betraying Alex like this. Dead or not, he was still her husband and she was still clinging to the desperate hope that they'd be reunited one day.

She couldn't help but be a little surprised, having been so certain that she had just ruined any potential relationship. "I'd like that," she said softly. "I promise, next time I won't...." Try to kiss him out of the blue? Attempt to use him to fill the hole in her soul that Alex had left behind. "...try to take you by surprise like that."

[open] and I know life is getting shorter, i can't bring myself to set the scene

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hisss i lost this one i'm sorry!

Psh, it happens!