Once Upon A December

He let himself concentrate on Clara’s worried face, forcing the dull ache in his chest to dissipate.

“…You’re right. Deering is them. Hawaii is you.” Levi murmured softly, pressing a protective kiss to the side of her temple. With those words, he felt the control settle back into his own hands.

“I know.” He cut her off before Clara could continue. “I know that no one would…appreciate it.” Levi smiled wryly, failing to think of a better term at the moment.

“You don’t?” He hummed in thought, eyes glazed over for a moment. “What do you think would have happened if we never happened?”

Clara pressed her lips together, biting her tongue gratefully for his interruption. “I’m still not sure it’s...” She searched for the right words, only coming up with names. Isobel. Liam. Jake. Ivy. The people they had left behind. The ones who were still alive and calling and writing and wanting to visit. “I wish it wasn’t...”

“You tell me,” Clara narrowed her gaze, tracing the curve of his nose. “I want to know what you think.”

“If I were to ever go back to Deering, visiting Mom and Dad would not be the first thing on my mind. But the cemetery…” Levi sighed to himself, letting go of her hips, glancing away in thought.

“I…” He tried to protest, tried to say that he would have been able to pull himself out, but even he knew the truth. “…yeah. You’re right. If I go back there…I’m not sure how long I’d be just…lost.”

Levi focused back on Clara, already feeling the clutch of the cold depression that was Deering on his mental state. He let a finger trace her cheekbone before cupping her face, the beautiful glint of her eyes making a faint smile appear. Levi was here now. Not back in Deering. “…different how?”

Clara didn’t want to see the longing in Levi’s eyes for a place she so despised. She didn’t want to know that he was in love with a ghost, who rested in the heart of the black hole they once called home.

“Focus,” she whispered, pulling him back from the icy memories. “We’re not in Deering, Levi. We’re in Hawaii.”

His hand cupped her cheek, signaling his return to this new world they inhabited. Sighing with relief, Clara covered his hand with her own, eyes wide, “well, for one, we wouldn’t be together. You know that would... No one would...”

Shaking her head, she smiled apologetically, “I don’t want to talk about what might have been.”

Levi instinctively shut his eye when he felt the kiss, faking a disgusted expression.

His arms went back down to rest loosely around her hips. “Call me crazy but I almost want to go back to Deering. Just for a visit.” He murmured, more to himself than to Clara.

Levi’s eyes followed Clara’s wrist as it went along the collar of his shirt, brushing a hair away from Clara’s eyes. “Did they? I wasn’t aware.”

“A visit?” she pulled away, looking skeptical. “Are you going to pop in and visit mom and dad? Maybe stop by the cemetery? That’s where most of our friends are, you know. The ones that are still there, anyway. Everyone else either left or accepted being miserable. Please...don’t go back there. I’ll never get you out again.”

He brushed the hair from her eyes, and Clara chewed her lower lip, still stuck in her previous thought. “That’s what I heard, anyway. It’s so different, Levi. If we had stayed...we would have been so different too.”

A light chuckle left Levi at her words, but he was in too good of a mood to retort. One of his hands ran up spine to the back of her head, pressing her close.

“Other than me? No. You haven’t missed much.” He smiled a bit, pulling away just enough to look at her face. “Time tends to move slowly when you leave.”

Clara shuddered, almost forgetting the feeling of his hands trailing up her back. Grinning sheepishly, she pressed her lips to his cheek, shrugging the nerves away. 

“Yes, well, Deering isn’t a place I like to stay for too long, so the feeling is mutual,” her fingers ran along the collar of his shirt, gripping lighting. “Isobel and Ryder moved to DC or something. Did you know that?”

Levi grinned, chest swelling and bracing himself for the impact. He let out a soft laugh as he felt Clara bound into him, arms automatically winding across her waist.

“Clara…” He sighed her name into the side of her brown locks, pressing her close into a protective hug. The feeling of her in his own arms was distinctly familiar and brought back old memories of being able to see her on a daily basis.

“I’m a stranger with a name now, huh?” she teased, wiggling into the embrace. It had been a few weeks since they’d seen each other. She’d gone home to see family and friends. Well, ‘friends’. Deering was still Deering, and the world there continued without them, but there was still someone so freeing about being back away from it all. 

“I missed you too,” Clara mumbled into his neck, finally letting out a long breath. “Have I missed much?”

Levi let his head tilt back over the arm rest, eyes widening though he expected Clara walking through the door. He flipped himself over, resting his weight on his forearms, staring at her stupidly with bright blue eyes.

“I…” He started, already letting a smile break out on to his face. “…hey stranger.” Levi finished, voice husky from lack of use.

Clara paused, caught in the intensity of Levi’s quiet joy. Feeling her legs ache to run, she dropped her suitcase, bounding towards him. For a brief moment, she was airborne, leaving the ground and flying right on top of him on the couch.

“Hey, stranger.”