I'm Not a Cynic

Clouse was stumbling all over himself, his words tying in knots without any grace. This was something she knew he did when he was upset. The young Hervok-Archer felt so much, more than she ever did. Sure, Ellery made jokes and she was obviously passionate about many things, but there were also a lot of ways in which she was closed off emotionally. She was not and had never been a touchy-feely kind of girl and her words weren’t always the warmest, she knew this about herself and rarely apologized for it. After all, pretty much everyone who knew her already knew of her disposition. But sometimes, in times like this, she wished she had a little more...empathy.

Her sibling said that he had wanted to come along and she could almost feel Scully’s triumphant ‘I told you so’ grin on the back of her neck from wherever he was. She nearly sighed, but held it in lest her brother think she was sighing at him. “Take a deep breath, Clouse. You’re fine,” she said, giving him a moment to regain his composure to the best of his ability. He was so young, she wasn’t here to fight him and, as much as she sometimes acted like it, she wasn’t his mother. Nineva was enough mom for all of them.

”Why did you leave without saying anything? Your father and lots of other Archers sneak off all the time, it’s not new. Hell, its probably even some right of passage that I don’t know about,” she said, choosing this time to sit down with the hopes that her brother would see she wasn’t planning on just taking him by the scruff and making a break for it...even if a small part of her wanted to.