sixthiterationlogs | smile - see miracles in life everyday

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smile - see miracles in life everyday

WHO: Claire Temple
WHERE: By her and Karen's place (House #3) and later the Inn
WHEN: March 17
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Baby moose Cuteness

Though it wasn't quite spring, Claire was seeing the beginnings of it starting in and around the village. Sprigs of green were starting to pop out from under the snow and the air took on a fresh smell during the day. But when Claire opens her door and steps out with a smile, it's pretty clear that whatever funk she was in is probably over and done with. She owes that to a few people for their support and shoulder and when she gets a chance, she had plans to find a way to show her appreciation.

Until then, it was life as usual and Claire had been neglecting her normal schedule for too long.

Before she even left the porch, something to the right caught her attention before two more things pulled her eyes over. There, walking towards her was Bub, his new lady that she and Clint named Babs and an adorable little addition that made Claire smile bigger than she had since long before arriving.

Now, most would likely be worried that Dad would be more than a little protective, though it almost seemed they were coming over so he could show off his offspring. Claire was careful regardless and sat up on the top step to show she was no threat.

"I'm impressed, Bub." she spoke, not at all worried how crazy that made her look. Claire laughed. "You didn't waste a minute, did you?"

And for the next little while, Claire lowered down each step until she was able to stretch out a hand to the little one. By the looks of it, he wasn't more than a week or two old. But her expertise was people, not animals and might have been off.

"Hey, Bud," she smiled, glancing up from the young moose to see someone lingering nearby.

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Jax isn't really much for the wildlife. He has lived here for a year now and it's been a goddamn struggle the whole time considering he's got skills that help in the real world and none of them are fucking useful here. He's a good mechanic, for all that's fucking worth here in a place with no vehicles. He's good at beating the shit out of people, surviving in prison, running guns. None of that shit is useful here in this stupid village.

Still, the moose is cute. He'd never seen moose before coming here because that's shit that lives in the woods and as previously established, he's not a woods guy, but there's a moose that's been coming around the village for as long as he's been here and he guesses it's decided to have a kid. Great for him. He's more interested in the woman than the moose, by far, and he comes up close to talk to her.

"So that one is going to grow up to be as big and menacing as the giant one that marks territory over by the fountain? Just what we need. More moose."

It's quite the same for Claire. She's used to the 'concrete jungle' which brought out the animalistic side in everyone at some point or another. But that aside, the closest she ever got to nature was Central Park and going to the zoo as a kid was the only way she knew what a moose looked like.

She laughs quietly and stands up from the step she was sitting on. "Oh, come on. It could be worse. Herbivore over carnivore?" Claire muses, holding out both her hands to 'weigh' that out.

Though Claire has seen the man around, they haven't met yet, as astonishing as that is living in place as small as the village.

"I would rather it eat from my hand than eat my hand," Jax agrees. Lady's got a point about that and he's not one to look a gift moose in the mouth. He guesses of all the fucked up things about this place, the moose is probably the least fucked up of them all. He's still looking around for moose-mama with wary eyes, though.

"I've seen the other one around. Guess it's a buck or something? No fucking idea what you call male moose."

For some reason, Claire immediately feels at home with the guy. Perhaps it was his way of talking, which was unmistakably American. He wasn't the first guy she'd ever talked to that had a mouth like a trucker.

"Neither do I." she replied, cringing a little. She was sure they taught her that in school, but given the fact she couldn't remember meant she was likely not listening. Hardly a surprise there.

Eyes dart around, catching the little one wandering over towards the inn. Bub followed close behind.

"Haven't seen anyone come through the clinic with any kind of moose injury so I'd say he feels pretty at home." she laughed. "As long he doesn't get that feeling he's being looked at like a piece of meat."

A beat.

"Don't think we've met. I'm Claire Temple." she added, holding out her hand.

Jax shakes her hand, glad for someone who's at least 1) American and 2) not put off by, well, him. There's a lot of people here who seem to be from some other time and place and they give him the side eye when he's just being himself. He's not in the business of trying to pretend to be anyone other than who he fucking is.

"Jax Teller. Good to meet you. And yeah, pretty sure nobody's gonna try and down that goddamn moose. I don't think bow and arrow's going to do the trick. Probably bounce right off it." Jax eyes the bigger one, especially the rack on it. He prefers racks on women, not moose.

"I'm from California, we don't go moose hunting."

Well, there was no chance of her being put off by him. Not when she worked all those years at Metro and dealt with way worse. No, if anything, Jax was that bit of familiarity Claire had been needing since she arrived so many months ago.

"New York." she shared in return. "I'm pretty sure anyone stupid enough to try and take out that size of an animal deserves the run of his life because it'll be game over if they stop for even a second."

Claire couldn't help but laugh at the image as she said it. She glances over and sees Bub disappear around her neighbour's house and looks back at Jax.

"I'm heading to the inn for some coffee. Care to join me?"

"Love to." Jax needs coffee if he's going to be discussing moose this fucking early (is it early? He doesn't know. No way to tell time here except by the sun and he's sure as fuck not getting up with the sun). Besides, Claire's someone he's hit it off with and he's not willing to end that conversation just yet. Beautiful women who don't want to slap him are few and far between.

"You been here long? I don't know your face yet but it doesn't mean a lot. I kinda keep to myself for the most part."

She turns them towards the direction of the inn and begins walking slowly. The weather wasn't great, but it was a lot better than it had been. Despite living in a city where it happened, Claire didn't care much for snow, ice and the cold.

"Just over six months now. But it feels like years." Claire huffs incredulously. She doubts she's the only one who feels it and wonders how Jax has dealt with it being there for a year.

She turns her head to look at him. "How come? Wait, it's the weather, isn't it?" Claire smirks.

Damn rights she's going to poke some fun at the beach boy waist deep in the snow.

"Shit yeah it's the weather. We get some kind of winter in the valley but it isn't shit like this. It just gets dry. Come to think of it, it's always dry, so it's just a little cooler than summer. Doesn't rain cause all that shit's over on the coast. Nothing but miles and farms where I am."

It's flyover territory, really, but Central Valley and Charming is home. He wouldn't have it any other way.

"Not seeing buckets of snow coming down on the regular, that's for damn sure."

A soft laugh sounded and Claire listened intently while he spoke.

"I've never been, in fact, I haven't been much of anywhere. Too expensive for a single mom to pay for. But I did manage to get over to Jersey a few times."

Maybe one day something would compel her to want to travel out there. Just to say she's been there.

As they cut through a couple of houses, she turned to look ahead again. "So what do you do for a living out there?"

There's a lot of answers to that question. The honest answer is that Jax hustles guns and pussy, more of the latter and less of the former these days. He's the kind of guy who keeps drugs out of his town and fights the gangs who bring it in. He's a father and a husband - but not really good at being a husband. In the end, he settles on the safest thing that he is that is sort of the truth: he's a mechanic. He's a goddamn good mechanic.

"Mechanic. Mostly motorcycles but I can do work on cars too. Not a lot of call for that around here, though, so I'm not so helpful in this village."

"I don't believe that," Claire replied with a soft smile. "You have two hands and lots of time. Mechanical experience can extend to other things and a guy like you has to know motors pretty good, right? So build one. Maybe it can be used to help run something."

Honestly, she knew nothing of motors, but she had an uncanny ability to be a voice of reason and Jax is the first person since leaving her world that gets to hear it.

Claire shrugs as they approach the doors to the inn. "Just a thought."

"Well, did pretty all right with fixing these roofs after a storm," Jax says, shrugging easily. "I can figure out how to do something else with my hands while I'm stuck here." It doesn't feel good to be useless even though it'd been nice to have a break when he'd first gotten here.

"I'm fucking sick of it being cold, though, so when the snow melts I'm going to be in a hell of a lot better mood. What about you? Do you like all the snow?"

She was of the same mind, particularly where it came to doing what she did best which was patching people up. There hadn't been much need for that in the last six months. Even secondary skills didn't come into play much. So, she learned by watching. It was all she could do to make the time pass.

At his question, she shook her head. "I love the snow and cold about as much as I love dealing with drug seekers in my ER. Sadly, being in New York none of the three are going to stop happening."

She opened the door and stepped in, holding it for Jax to follow in after.

"Definitely ready for it to get warmer because I am sick to death of freezing my ass off through the night."

Jax follows her through the door, glad to get out of the cold. It's warmer than it has been, sure, but that's like saying he moved to Alaska from Antarctica. It's still fucking cold and he's ready for winter to be goddamn over. One of the things about this place is that the weather is always a topic because it's more important here than it'd be in places with climate control.

"You and me both. Don't even have anyone to help with the freezing my ass off at night so it's just misery. I keep falling in with doctors and shit, though. My girl back home was a surgeon."

That's precisely what she means. A warm body to sleep next to on cold nights was essential for a good nights sleep. And thinking back on it now, Claire was pretty sure she hadn't had a full nights sleep due to shivering since she arrived back in the fall.

Wandering into the dining room, she glanced back with a grin. "Oh, really? What specialty?"

"Pediatrics. She does surgery on tiny babies," Jax says, clearly proud. While his relationship is not always on the best terms and while he's not always faithful, he's got nothing but respect for Tara and her skill. She'd gotten the hell out of Charming and made something of herself only to get drawn right back in.

"I'd be too fucking scared to do something like that but not her. She's damned good at it."

"Mad respect there." Claire slowed, turning once more to face Jax. "I work in an ER and we see a lot of babies and young kids down there before they hit the OR's."

It was enough to break her heart, but they were patients just like everyone else and the nurse spent a long time focusing on the task at hand and not how it hurt her heart to have to call time of death on someone who barely got to live.

"Smartest woman I know. Damn good at what she does." No matter what happens between he and Tara relationship-wise, he's always going to respect her as the mother of his kids and someone who knows how to be a good mother and a good person. He's the one who shits things up most of the time.

"What made you decide to be a nurse?"

For some reason, the way Jax talked about his girl back home made her think of Luke and it made her miss him more than she had since arriving in the village. But missing him wouldn't bring him there and she'd dealt with being homesick enough already so she pushed his face from her mind and answered Jax's question.

"I took a basic first aid course in grade school and didn't get to use it until a couple years later when I found my neighbour bleeding out in the elevator of our building. He would have died had I not known what to do and from there," Claire shrugged modestly. "I took to medicine pretty naturally."

She laughed as she picked up a coffee cup and filled it for Jax.

"That and I wanted to help people."

It was the typical default answer most would give.

"I think everyone who wants to be a doctor or a nurse, the real good ones that aren't in it just for the money? I think they're the kind of people who just want to help others," Jax says, nodding along with her. Tara's like that. Claire seems to be like that.

"Not how I work. I protect my family, yeah, but I don't want to help everyone I come across. I'm selfish. Only if you mean something to me am I going to stick my neck out for you. I need to know you first."

Edited 2018-04-21 20:46 (UTC)

Claire knew people like that.

"I can understand that. I'm not one to judge. People do what's right for them and to be honest, outside the ER, I was like that, too. Until I found a blind vigilante dying in the dumpster outside my apartment building."

Matt was the first guy she'd met who felt compelled to take care of everyone from bad people in the community.

"How's a blind guy gonna fight people? I mean, I've seen people do a lot of shit with not a lot to work with but that's probably why he got the shit beat out of him. If you're blind, you don't know where the asshole is to get away from him."

Just seems logical to Jax, anyway.

It was the obvious next question.

"He's different. In his case, because he was blind heightened all his other senses into something... superhuman. There was also a guy I knew who had impenetrable skin."

"That's some ninja shit," Jax says. It's pretty weird but everything he's experienced in this place has been weird as hell so it doesn't shock him that Claire comes from a place that's just as messed up.

"How'd he learn how to do that?"

Claire laughs.

"You don't know the half of it." she says, finally realizing she's been holding the cup of coffee she poured for him for longer than one usually would.

Holding it out, she filled her own and moved over to a table to sit down.

"Before coming here, we were dealing with something called the Hand which was neck deep in a lot of shady stuff."

Jax takes the cup and inhales for a second before drinking it. Coffee is one of the things he cherishes most around here, considering it's rare enough to be drunk sparingly. He likes a good, strong cup and Claire apparently makes a good one.

"The Hand? What kind of gang is the Hand?"

"You familiar with the Yakuza?" she asks, tilting her head slightly as lifts her cup to her lips. "The Hand are like them only immortal. Or, were. Before coming here, a few friends of mine sabotaged their only means of staying immortal."

She takes a sip of her coffee and lowers it again.

Jax knows about Triad and Yakuza, even though they tend to stick to the coast and not his part of California. It's some fucked up shit, the idea that they could be immortal. What if there were immortal Aryan Nation?

"How the hell did they end up immortal? Wasn't aware that was possible. Some kind of black market organ shit?"

"Dragon bones." Claire answered simply. It was going to sound like the most off-the-wall thing ever, but it was the truth and she had a hard time believing it before seeing it up close.

It's also half the reason Matt lost his life when the damn thing collapsed on itself after the explosives detonated.

"Dragon bones. You know, if you weren't you, I wouldn't believe half the shit you say," Jax says, laughing softly.

"So dragon bones. Did they eat them or what? I'm not real sure how immortality works since I'm not ever gonna be immortal."

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smile - see miracles in life everyday

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