Chapter Text
Claire Farron is 15 when her father dies. It's a meaningless death, a heart attack . He died, away from home. She is 15 when her sister is crying in her arms.
It's ridiculous. He was unreliable, and reckless. Couldn't keep a job, or cook, or do housework. She and Serah had run the household since they were old enough to.
But he was their father, and in the dead of night, Claire muffles sobs in her pillow, and pretends not to hear Serah in the next room, doing the same.
In the morning, when she wakes up, she gets to work. There's a funeral to arrange, and no one else to arrange it. He didn’t have life insurance, her father. If he had, she would’ve been the one to organize it, anyway.
Serah curls up into her side, not really aware of what she’s doing. It’s good, Claire thinks. It was a fight to get her out of bed in the first place. It isn’t her fault. Claire knows she’s not grieving. She knows she should be, but there’s no time. So, she won’t grieve. Not until this was sorted. She won’t grieve, so Serah can, because someone has to.
Claire Farron does the research, organises the funeral, because no one else will. She dips into the savings he left them, enough so that he can be buried alongside their mother. Someone he worked with drops off meals, some casserole or pasta or whatever they had leftovers of. It’s not sentimental. It’s practical, and she appreciates that. She has to, because she can’t think of food right now.
It’s three days before the funeral could be booked. Three days, five meals, and two nights of Serah weeping, late at night, when she thinks Claire won’t hear. Two nights of Claire holding Serah, carding her hand through her hair, singing gentle lullabies until Serah finally goes to sleep.
She wonders if she should change her name. Change it to something tough, and strong, and cool, cool enough to keep the fear and the sadness and the weakness at bay. Those two nights, Claire stays awake, long after Serah falls asleep. She whispers names into the night, wondering if she’ll find one that makes her feel strong, in a way Claire never was.
In the night, there’s a voice that answers. It’s hers, young in a way that she can’t afford to be anymore. And it whispers back to embrace being Claire. To be weak, and afraid, and sad, and to use it. It’ll make her stronger.
And she listens.
The funeral comes. It’s a quiet affair, her dad’s old workmates coming to wish him goodbye. Serah’s in a black dress, Claire managed a black shirt and jeans. The people there avoid them. They whisper of how their father has entered the grace of the Astrals’, now, how he’s in a better place.
She wants to strangle them.
She hears whispers, from people who think she can’t hear them, or that she’s not listening.
“Poor kids.”
“Do they have — relatives?”
“Poor kids.”
“--foster system for them.”
“Poor kids.”
“--war refugees? They’re not going to find a home.”
“Poor kids.”
“They’re Insomnian-born, someone might want them.”
“Poor kids.”
“Serah might be lucky.”
“Poor kids.”
“Claire’s too old.”
“Poor kids.”
“No mother?”
“Poor kids.”
“He never mentioned a partner.”
“Poor kids.”
“We’ll have to contact someone.”
“Poor kids.”
Claire can see the pity in their eyes. Two orphans, in a city full of them. She hates it. She doesn’t want their pity. Pity is meaningless, it doesn’t help anyone. She wants to scream at them, the adults making plans about them, talking about them like they don’t matter, like they’re luggage, left behind. Like they don’t get a say in their futures, just because their father died.
But she doesn’t.
Serah is clutching onto her hand like it’s a lifeline. Or maybe Claire is gripping hers like she can never afford to let go. Either way, it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t shout. She just stands there, as the world orbits around her dead father.
These people never really knew him. They don’t know them at all. They’re here out of politeness, out of a little bit of grief for a lost acquaintance. They don’t know how he used to play games with Serah when she’d had a fall, or how he’d scrimped and saved, back before he had a steady job, to get them plush toys. Serah had gotten a stuffed Moogle. She’d named it Mog, and Claire had laughed at her for being uncreative (she’d named her own stuffed chocobo, a pretty white colour, Odin (she’d never known why)). They didn’t know about special Dad time, or how much care he took to make sure that they had a special meal on their birthdays.
He was unreliable, and reckless, and prone to job-switching on a whim, but he was their dad. He was her dad.
They never really knew him, these people, and they never cared to try.
When the funeral is over, and the people around them begin to leave, wishing their final condolences, Claire stands at the grave for a while. They can’t afford much, but he’s next to their mum. Serah never knew her, and Claire’s memories are hazy, but they belong together. Serah cries, and Claire just stands. None of those people will ever think about them again.
None of them even offered them a lift home.
They stand there until Serah starts to shiver and yawn. It’s not a cold day, but neither of them have enough on. Then they walk home. It’s a long walk, and some people give them odd looks, pitying looks, but Claire doesn’t care. She’s towing a tired, emotional 12 year old, she doesn’t need your interest or your pity.
Just another couple of orphans, after all, in a city full of them.
When they get home, Serah showers, and goes to sleep. She’s tired, after all.
Claire seethes.
Seethes at those people and their pity, at the assumption that they’d just go into foster care, at their decisions to pity them but not offer any actual help. She lies awake, boiling with rage, and grief, and some other emotions she can’t even name. She slips out of the house, and goes to a park.
It’s late, way too late, but she doesn’t care. She just needed to be somewhere else.
She doesn’t cry. Claire doesn’t cry.
But, late at night, she screams .
Screams at the utter audacity of those people, to think that the Astrals have any grace after they took their father. Screams at the audacity of her father, to go off and die on them, when Serah needed him, when she needed him. Screams at a city who doesn’t care enough about its people, screams at a people who don’t care enough about their children. Screams at Serah, for being the youngest, so that she has to bear the weight of this. Screams at herself, for not being strong enough, smart enough, prepared enough for this.
She screams at the Astrals, at the King and his Council, at the hospitals who couldn’t save him.
She just screams.
When her voice is hoarse, Claire goes home.
She’s asleep as soon as she’s under the covers.
In the morning, one of their neighbours makes them pancakes. Ms. Tetria is her name. She’s an old lady, who used to babysit Claire when she was young. She drops off the pile of food with a quiet condolence, but its the only one Claire thinks she can accept. They eat pancakes with caramel sauce and ice cream, because that’s what Serah wants.
In the morning, Serah goes to school. It’s her choice, her insistence. Claire doesn’t understand (she’s certainly not going), but Serah walks away with tears in her eyes and a smile on her face. Claire goes to the computer again, and she researches.
The foster system in Insomnia? Terrible.
Schools in Insomnia? Expensive, particularly if she wanted to make sure Serah went to a good one.
Food in Insomnia? Also expensive, something with the Wall and the war.
She needs a job.
She needs a job that supplies formal training, that doesn’t need her to complete high school. They have limited money, money that's only going to get less if she doesn’t find something that pays decently.
In the end, she settles on the highest paying job she can find. Training mostly supplied, apparently. At 15, she’s younger than they’d prefer, according to the application. She doesn’t care. It’s the best she has.
Surprisingly, she gets an interview.
It’s in two days, and Claire prepares her answers. Still, when the actual question is asked, it’s surprising.
“So, Miss Farron. Why do you want to join the Crownsguard?”