The Timeline

65.

A/N: will be trying something new here

April 11th, 2018:

On the day of the concert, Claire and Toby had another fight.

The fight was about the concert, obviously.

Specifically, the fight revolved around the fact that Claire was still going to attempt the concert, despite Toby's many grievances and complaints about her doing so.

Sardonically, the whole thing had reminded Claire of the same exact fight she had had with Fannie, five years prior, about attending One Direction's concert. Not that Claire was thinking about Fannie, specifically, all the time, but lately, also because of what she talked about with Donna, she was thinking about the past years and revisiting them more than she usually did - or tried to not do at all, actually.

The fight had been born that very morning, when Toby had called Claire to ask her if she wanted to tag along with him and Jacopo that night, after filming for her show would be done. Claire, confused by his request, had asked him if he had forgotten what day it was, and that she, David and Theodore would be attending Harry's show at the O2.

To be fair, things between Toby and Claire had been weird and uncomfortable ever since they had their last fight, on the 5th of the month, when Claire had told him about the show and about the fact they were on speaking terms again. Claire had gotten incredibly mad at him, had told him off, and Toby had been just as mad at her, storming off and not talking to her for a whole day. It had been Claire who had caved in, contacting him and asking him if they could talk. He had been snappish, although he had agreed to talk. He had, once again, shared how unhappy he was about Claire attending the concert. When Claire had asked him why he was so unhappy about it, he had scoffed, saying that Claire ought to open her eyes and see for herself. She had gotten irritated again, and had told him that if he was going to be a crybaby about it, then she couldn't do much to help him.

She had complained about the thing with Beatrix plenty. She didn't feel like she could do it at home, because Jacopo was very close to Toby, and he knew that something was up between the two of them. Potentially, he also knew what was wrong, exactly, because something told Claire that Toby had shared his version of what had happened; sometimes, Claire would catch Jacopo looking at her with a weird expression, his lips parting many times in the span of a minute, as if he was gearing up the courage to say something, losing it along the way, or simply giving up on it.

That annoyed Claire. Seeing Jacopo take Toby's side so blindly, going as far as feeling like he was bound to patch things up between the two of them. Then, she stopped, and reminded herself that she didn't have to be mad at her friend, for he knew only half of the story, there - on Toby's side, blinded with jealousy, for whatever reason. It was in those moments that she felt like she could've gone to her friend and told him what was going on.

In the end, she never did.

Talking to Jacopo about what was going on also meant that she should've told him about her and Harry being on speaking terms again - which he already knew about, because Toby had shared the thing with him, surely - and doing so would've meant sharing that she was trying to make amends with him and build a new friendship after having been incredibly vocal about cutting him off the previous year.

She already had to deal with David's glances at her, from time to time, as if he was trying to decode her and her brain. She didn't like it, not because she didn't want him decoding her, but because it seemed like he knew more about her than she did. And Claire could only deal with so many people knowing more about her than she did at once.

So the situation hadn't been the most comfortable amongst the lot of them, with many unsaid words and loaded silences that could've been solved had Toby just stopped being such an arse and being mad about something Claire wasn't going to give up because he couldn't get a grip and start acting like a damned adult.