#raph this verse of ours is gonna be the death of me so many feeeels

[legaciestold]

march 29th, 2009 rp drabble/rp lead-in included: claire, sherry, & leon (+ chris, jill, and ingrid mentions) also pertains to @everythingheard

moe's did a decent amount of business considering how difficult it could be to find at times and the state of the rest of the block it was on with boards still on the sides of the two buildings next door. the light outside shone bright now at least, though. six months ago a fire had had taken out the bakery and comic book shops next to it. luckily the fire department had managed to stop the blaze before it'd fully engulfed the restaurant but the damage had still been extensive and the other businesses had taken their insurance payout and relocated. moe's on the other hand had been a staple in the area for years even if it wasn't really known to people outside of the neighborhood (claire had only stumbled upon it on accident years ago and come there ever since) and no one had been willing to stand idly by when the insurance company hadn't been willing to cover as much as they believed they should have.

that's why claire had helped out with the fundraiser that had been formed to help moe get the place back in shape. it'd been a testament to humanity, a flicker of reassurance that there was still good out there even when claire had seen the worst people were capable of so often both in raccoon and in the images seared into her mind both from her time with terrasave and now with the bprd. moe had been brought to tears when he'd been presented with a check and the commitment by the local construction company to help because moe had helped them out by sending them free food when the family-run company had one of it's members in the hospital and most of the workers hadn't thought to ensure they were getting meals during that awful time. sherry had made cookies to help raise money too when she'd found out about it and those cookies remained edible even if claire's track record with cookies had become a legendary joke that she always seemed the butt of. (she has half a mind to make coal-looking cookies and put them in christmas stockings this year.)

the restaurant's comfortably busy on this lazy sunday afternoon as sun filters through the window and angelica-- the waitress that always rotated weekend shifts with their usual server diane-- greets them at the counter. the scene causes a strange sort of feeling to wash over claire when she stops angelica and tells her that actually, maybe they'll sit on the other side today and the waitress looks at her quizzically but then offers a soft smile. for a decade they've always sat in the back, a little further off from the other tables but in full sight of both the entrance and the side door that led out to the alley. a mix of habit and ensured and required security. still, perhaps the fact claire is on a first name basis with the staff of the pizza joint is an indication that she's provided sherry with a few unhealthy eating habits over the years. yet, in a strange kind of way, this restaurant has been with them all nearly as long as raccoon and seen glimpses into the various aspects of her, sherry, and leon's lives over the years.

sometimes claire wonders what they must look like to diane or angelica or even moe who always seemed to have a new kind of desert ready for sherry (despite the fact it was a pizza joint and not an ice cream parlor), even after the girl had graduated high school. the amazed wonder on sherry's face never had seemed to dissipate upon the new creations either, even if sherry was about to enter training to become an agent of the same government that'd run more tests than any of them could count on her for years. claire thinks, on the surface, maybe, they look like any other family coming in for lunch at their favorite restaurant but she also knows even if they'd only ever skirted the line of information and frankly the bizarre too that some inferences have been made on the part of the staff and maybe that's also gone both ways at times. loud noises always made claire's eyes dart to the doors in her line of sight. when her, leon, and sherry came there it was just them but over the years when claire has brought sherry 'by themselves' there was always one of three men who'd seat themselves at the diner-style counter across the room, not actively part of their little group but still present as they always were when claire took sherry places. claire had hated that, at first before she'd grown to accept it and a par to claire wonders if it really was a kind of resigned acceptance at just being used to it or because somewhere along the way she'd started to actually-- at least to a point-- allowed herself some amount of trust in simmons especially after he'd gotten sherry into that school even if that'd taken a hit after prismya and claire found out he was the one who blackmailed leon, or some combination of all factors.

(they hadn't followed her to work or when she went out, except that one terrible month terra save had gotten those horrid threats and simmons had insisted they watch her too. but they were always present when sherry went out places. it'd been the price they paid for government protection. distant enough to not always be readily noticed at her insistence, but always there.)

claire had also grown fairly invested in the ever-developing relationship that seemed to be agent blake and diane even if she wouldn't readily admit to such. but people weren't stupid. the staff knew something had been up and had accepted them as being regulars at the restaurant for a decade. they'd seen sherry grow up, sherry even bringing her two best friends there and causing the usual shadow agent to have two others there too. claire imagines that might have been a bit of a comical scene and also grants the boys some credit since this place likely wasn't a usual kind of place they'd frequent. the staff had also seen jill and chris on a few occasions earlier on as they'd all come to have dinner. they'd seen hell.boy once too, when they were closing and he'd been in the transport directly after a mission and she'd picked up about ten pizzas she'd pre-ordered to bring back and while he was supposed to stay hidden, hell.boy hadn't and moe hadn't reacted in the way she'd believed he would which had only ever caused claire to have more questions than answers about moe's own origins and why he'd reacted as if he saw people like hell.boy all the time. but moe never asked her to reveal her secrets so she hadn't asked him either. they'd seen them all in various states of healing bodily harm too and while claire knows from the looks they'd get they itched to ask, they never did. there'd been a kind of acceptance across the board. and there's a kind of hidden communication in this moment that passes between them all too, as chairs are pulled out at a table and angelica says she'll be right back with their usual drinks.

there's an understanding in the fact that claire has moved their table that something has changed even if angelica doesn't know what.

there's also a knowing smile that claire sees mirrored in sherry and leon's faces too even if claire still seats herself angled to one of the doors and leon does other. old habits die hard and they are all too aware of the world they live in even in the moments like these they determine to forget it for awhile. blue-gray hues move across the restaurant and meet moe's who peeks his head out and waves at them, claire smiling back brightly and offering one in return. idly claire wonders if they have a betting pool on if their group is some super secret spy family right out of spy k.ids or if one of them has endeavored to try to look leon up and believes he's taken up after his long-dead family on the crime scene. huh, actaully, maybe not that; for some reason claire thinks maybe the government or more likely hunnigan may have wiped his connection to that, at least publicly. she's never had reason to check, leon's told her about his family and for that matter, jill has mentioned a few things she knew about them too. that was a bit of a mind-fuck, that while maybe claire and leon certainly knew each other longer in terms of time spent together, technically jill met leon first. what would that have looked like if zombies had never happened and they all had met at the police station in raccoon?

it's all rather fantastical and claire bites back a chuckle, her knee gently brushing against leon's under the table as they shift to start sipping their drinks when angelica brings them. maybe he's thinking the same things she is. it doesn't really matter either way.

there's something lighter about this sunday and it's filtering through every moment as it passes. because even if they are all aware there's still danger out there, one of those dangers which has lingered over them for years is gone. albert wes.ker is dead and with him the last trace of umbrella even if technically speaking it'd been almost six since the fall of the company and three since spencer's death.

i don't know where you are trent, but i hope this brings you peace too, claire thinks.

(or at least the old umbrella, claire was reserving both judgement and the right to believe it could be just as bad when it came to blue umbrella; after all, claire knew that chris hadn't been thrilled about their contract to supply the bsaa with weapons to use against bo.w.s that'd been implemented two years ago.)

and, chris had jill back.

that and the fact that sherry was joining the dso meant that the 'protections' that had laid upon the edges of claire's life for almost a decade would now ease. it meant agent blake wasn't gonna be coming to the restaurant with them anymore, though claire had the feeling she'd still see him at the restaurant.

oh, she'd bet money on it.

and claire thought she'd be okay with that. blake had always been nice and endeavored to make the situation feel more like a friendship than a secret protection detail. he asked sherry about school and even was college friends with one of sherry's friend's details. claire had a certain level of trust in him that she'd never completely had with the other two agents who always felt so much more rigid and.. well, spy-like. if she had to guess that anyone was actively reporting back to simmons (no matter the tentative trust he'd managed to get from her because she had come to believe that despite the fucked up history there in the aftermath of raccoon and the deal that haunted her and leon's chance at a relationship for so many years, that surely simmons did care about sherry and her own well-being after so many years) about their lives-- which she hated the idea of--, she'd have banked on it being them and not blake and claire really hoped she wasn't wrong about that.

"so i was thinking, maybe we should all take a trip to new york before sherry starts her training." claire says, the cherry flavor of her soda lingering in her mouth as she looks from her daughter to her boyfriend.

god, three years of her calling him that and it still did strange things to her.

the shift between them both changing everything and nothing at all because they were still them, it hadn't been some monumental moment like in the prince.ss diaries but a moment where they'd let themselves see everything and choose to embrace it. so really, they acted much the same, had the same care and love and everything in-between that had always existed between them, there was just... kissing and sex included now.

"i think it'd do jill good to see some friendly faces that aren't trying to make her a lab rat and only want to fill her in on all the episodes of psych she missed." there's a kind of weighted tension on the edges of what she says but a kind of lightness too. because wes.ker was dead and they had jill back and claire thinks that maybe, finally, no matter what the bprd or dso or the joint task force throw at them in-between, maybe they all-- especially her brother-- could finally breathe again. if only until the next crisis the universe decided to throw at them.

the rest of the day goes rather unceremoniously, a rarity that no alerts managed to come to any of their phones and they could just exist in the moment and this little blip of normalcy. distantly she wonders if ingrid has something to do with it and if she does, she's entirely grateful for the day of respite that they are all being blessed with. and well, sherry was talking about moe's latest creation for days to come even if claire and leon's daughter was twenty-two and no longer the twelve-year-old his first sundae creation had been given to.