As Eliot’s returns to his own timeline and body became fewer and farther between, Sean eventually had a small room in the cellar made for him during all his forays throughout Claire’s long existence. Leaving him there in the bedroom adjoining their own for days, weeks or months on end just didn’t seem practical. And, as Sean stated, it was a bit eerie.
But as his time away stretched out into months, the 1870s eventually became the 1880s, and Claire’s worry grew as much as her hope shrank. Sean tried to assure her that the longer Eliot was away from himself, so to speak, it meant that he was just trying that much harder to find a way to save her. That assurance didn’t seem to calm Claire’s fears much though. After all, whatever Eliot was doing, whenever he was doing it, was still unknown to anyone but Eliot. That fact easily lent itself to imagining the worst possible explanations for his extended time away, and Claire’s ingrained pessimism did allow her to excel at coming up with those worst case scenarios on a nearly hourly basis.
Adding to the worry caused by Eliot’s longer and longer absences was the fact that on most occasions, when he did return to himself, it was during the daylight hours. And during those hours, Claire wouldn’t be able to see or interact with him anyway. After all, the life he was watching did primarily take place in the dark. Though, the longer he watched Claire live through all of those endless nights of her life, the more and more he understood her tearful reaction to those tiny slivers of sunlight he had helped her to finally see once again on that beautiful morning they had spent together, in the same place, and the same time.
Oftentimes, when Eliot made his way back to the present, he would shake himself from the strange sort of stasis his body remained in while he traveled, and then quickly make his way up to the kitchen to find sustenance for his actual living body once more and to of course, ask the servants if Claire was still well. His very real fear of being gone during that one moment when the prophecy took hold of her made him always ask that question any time he ever did return to the present. Of course, even the normally docile servants would even occasionally say, “well, if you just stayed until the sun set...”
Eliot did yearn to see Claire and spend time with her again. He also knew that she likely missed their time actually living in the same moment as well. But there were reasons he never stayed long, despite how much he wanted to. There was the easily surmised reason that the longer he spent in the present the closer the present got to that dark future and his chance of stopping Claire’s fate from coming to pass. But there was another reason that he didn’t vocalize, though was always in his head.
Time travel was tricky. That was heartily apparent. That was the reason he would never, ever, ever let himself interact with Claire in any way, shape or form during those times he visited her past. Any word spoken to her or glimpse he allowed her to have of him there in astral form watching any part of her life; it could have far reaching and devastating effects on the present, and as much as the present might need fixing, the chance of shattering any tiny bit of it was too great.
So when he watched her past, he watched it in silence, painful as it was to not reach out or even speak to her in any way at all. And some of those moments of her past sorely tested his ability to remain only a spectator in her life. But he knew that’s all he could ever be if he didn’t want to risk changing everything about her. And the only thing he ever wanted to change about her life was to stop any chance that prophecy had of taking it away. And that chance was in the future.
And when he finally let himself begin visiting tiny bits of her future, yes he could allow himself to interact with her without changing the present day Claire he knew and loved, but tampering with anything other than the one thing he was aiming to tamper with, that was still a scary thought. And seeing any bit of her future at all, that also caused Eliot severe problems.
Even if he didn’t allow himself to interact with the parts of her future that he did peer in at, they were still there in his head. Memories, but ones that weren’t his own and hadn’t even happened yet. How could those not be burned into his brain? He had literally seen the future: The future of a woman he had let himself fall in love with, against all odds and logic. And having her future, even the tiniest glimpses of it, there in his head, it made it that much more terrifying of a prospect to interact with Claire at all when he did return. How does one talk to someone in anything resembling a natural way at all, when they know their very future? No matter how minor the facts were that they knew, how was it possible to act normally in the presence of that person anymore at all?
Now Eliot also understood something else. The Malkavians were the seers for the Kindred, they were the ones that could see all sorts of future events, without even actively seeking them out, as Eliot was now doing. And the price they paid for trying to balance the present they were living in with the future they knew was coming, that was a steep one indeed. And Eliot could now fully empathize with that price that all the madness-touched Kindred of that clan were paying every night of their lives. And that was the most terrifying thought of all.
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~1886~
It was now 1880... something, it was hard for Eliot to keep track, all things considered. Though that day he made another of his ever so rare returns to his own time before starting his next exploration into Claire’s future, trying to solve a crime against her that hadn’t even happened yet. Only, when he forced his consciousness back to his still eerily dormant body, he found that he was not alone there in his tiny room in the cellar of Sean’s home which was effectively a mansion at this point.
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“Hello?” he greeted his companion shakily as he pushed his body up from where it had lain dormant for days as his mind traveled elsewhere.
It took him a moment to remember the woman’s name, since he hadn’t ever really interacted with her at all in his time there. He knew she was one of Sean’s councilors which made it that much more confusing to see her there next to his bed when he woke. Then he remembered the other facts he had gleaned about her over the years. Her name was Lissa, and she was actually what he once heard referred to as Sean’s enforcer. He didn’t ask much about the term, but it was easy to imagine what a vampire Prince’s enforcer’s job description might actually entail.
Eliot swallowed a bit as he vaguely remembered the facts he knew about who Lissa was and her role there in Sean’s city. But he couldn’t let himself spend too much time dwelling on the actual reason for her presence now, as he was too busy trying to ascertain how she was even sitting up and alert there next to his bed, during the day...
“Glad you finally came back today,” she told him in a calm voice with the slightest trace of her British accent remaining after two centuries as a citizen of Los Angeles, and Sean’s enforcer. “It’s harder than it looks for me to stay awake right now,” she added in answer to the shocked expression on the features of the man who still looked barely twenty years old thanks to that strange magic he had used on Claire’s blood all those years ago.
“How, even?” he asked in a slight stammer, balancing shock and worry at once.
“I’m different than Sean and Claire” was her simple response as though it should have been enough. A woman of many words Lissa was not.
“You’re not a vampire then?” was all Eliot could come up with as a response then, even though he was well aware that that was exactly what she was. Or so he had thought at any rate.
“From a different clan” she replied briefly. “But I need answers from you right now, not the other way around.”
“What did I do?” he asked worriedly, only then allowing himself to remember her actual role in Sean’s territory.
Though he still wasn’t quite sure if he fell under her jurisdiction as he wasn’t Kindred. Though having Claire’s blood in his veins, even if it only remained there because of his strange magic; it did make him one of their servants, which did fall under the Prince’s jurisdiction. Eliot then pushed those thoughts away. Whether he was under Sean’s jurisdiction or not seemed irrelevant when he was quite sure he hadn’t committed any crime while his mind was years away from his dormant physical form.
Lissa just shook her head. “Yes, I’m their enforcer, but this isn’t about that. It’s about the fact that I’m their friend, more or less” she added more quietly. “We arrived in the new world on the same boat. Minna and I and Sean and Claire. Two centuries ago. So, that does make us friends, in some way.”
Eliot narrowed his eyes then thought on her statement. “That’s when Minna gave him the prophecy?”
Lissa sighed slightly, “any news on that?” she made herself ask, remembering that his strange travels through time itself were because of the very prophecy he now inquired about.
“You mean do I know when this terrible thing is going to happen to her yet? If I did, I think I’d have mentioned that the second I woke, wouldn’t I have?”
Lissa shook her head again. “Back to my questions. It’s been a very long time since you even spoke to Claire or Sean. All of us are getting very worried about why that is.”
Eliot looked away. He was well aware that he had been avoiding Sean and Claire, but he also was the only one aware of the reasons behind it. And he wanted to keep it that way. It was too hard to explain his fears of having to speak to Claire again while knowing so many little things about her future, but still not the one thing he had been desperately trying to discover, and put a stop to.
“Most of the time I come back during the day” he made himself offer some attempt at an excuse that would be easier to explain than his real reasons for being afraid to see Claire again, in real time. “They tend to not really be available then. It’s a vampire thing...” he then looked back at her and added, “for most of them, anyway.”
Though Lissa didn’t have Sean’s or Claire’s psychic abilities, she still was not that easily swayed by his excuse. “And then you make sure to go off and leave again before they can wake. Why is that, Eliot? What exactly are you afraid of them seeing?”
“It’s not about...” he began, then backtracked. He was actually very afraid of Sean ripping any of Claire’s future out of his head after all. If he ever did, then Sean would be in the same position as Eliot; not having any idea how to interact with Claire at all anymore.
“Then what is it about?” Lissa spoke, though her voice remained gentle. “If you won’t talk to them, talk to me. Help me put their minds at ease about what it is you’re actually doing or seeing when you’re off and away like you are.”
That was when all the stress Eliot was forcing down since he began his travels, suddenly bubbled to the surface. Perhaps he just needed to let go of some little part of the mental burden he had elected to take upon himself. But he spoke at last.
“Do you know how hard it is to exist at all in one time when you can see exactly where it’s going and how and when? How do you maintain your own presence in your own life when you’ve seen so much farther? How can you be there at all, when your mind has already lived out days and days that haven’t even happened yet? To you, everyone else’s present is your past. How does someone even function like that?” he asked with desperation, tears appearing in his dark eyes as he poured out his feelings and pain to a woman who was essentially a stranger to him.
But he had to. He honestly wasn’t sure he could bear any of it at all anymore. Trying to save Claire’s life had essentially, in some strange way robbed him of his own, or at least his ability to continue to function in his own time and his own life. And he knew that letting Claire see that loss he was now trying to cope with in order to save her; that would only add to that guilt of hers. And that was one thing he also never wanted to let her go through.