The world has stopped but it hasn't. The noises were distant. Gabriel rushed towards Claire, hearing only his loud heartbeat and panting. His ears were ringing, not letting him process any other sound. Everything was going too fast.
Claire was on the ground beside the car. She coughed and spat blood which stained her white silk shirt and a beige-coloured blazer.
Her eyes flickered as she barely glanced over at Gabriel before they rolled back.
Vultures with cameras stuck up their devices to catch the occurrence. They didn't care. They didn't understand.
"Claire." Gabriel panted as he reached her. He was too far. He was too late. Claire's hand was limp. Her body was motionless. Someone else ran over to help. A stranger checked for her breath but nothing was there. He shook his head at Gabriel and started some chest compressions. Gabriel leaned over Claire's head, moving a strand of her hair as he so often did. His sobs grew heavier and shook his body as he realised that the eyes stared lifelessly into the distance.
The flashing lights didn't distract him. It wasn't until someone pulled him away. He tried fighting them but they didn't let him. They were calm. They knew what to tell him to let them do their job.
"I'm coming with her." Gabriel announced but the paramedic shook his head.
"We're taking her to the General Infirmary." He said as he went into the ambulance. Gabriel stood dumbstruck as the ambulance drove off.
"Gabriel, let's go." Klaus pulled him and pushed him into the car, driving as fast as he could, not caring for speed limits.
They lost sight of the ambulance but arrived at the hospital promptly.
Gabriel rushed out of the car before Klaus even properly stopped.
"Where is she?!" Gabriel roared as e reached the hospital, still covered in blood that he didn't seem to notice.
"Name?" The receptionist asked.
"Claire Thompson or Claire Moore!" Gabriel didn't care for being nice.
"She was pronounced dead before the arrival." The receptionist responded quietly. "I'm very sorry." She added.
"What?" Gabriel's hand dropped. "That's not true! You're lying to me! Where is she?!!!!" The receptionist looked warily at Gabriel's explosion. "Where is my wife?!"
"In the morgue." The receptionist repeated patiently. "If you bring your marriage certificate, you can arrange to see her with the coroner."
"No!" Gabriel slid against the wall, falling to the floor. "You're lying!"
"What happened?" Zoe, Gina and Mark run into the hospital barely moments later. The women watched the trial on a tv and were unfortunate to see the aftermath being still on the screen. Mark realised something was off as he was in the car listening to the news whilst on the way to the office. It didn't take them long to rush through to the hospital.
"I'm so sorry." The receptionist repeated.
"You're lying!!!" Gabriel screamed. "Claire can't be dead!!!"
"What happened?" Gina asked the receptionist as Mark rushed towards Gabriel.
"The woman that was hit by the car was pronounced dead before arriving at the hospital. I'm so sorry." The receptionist repeated before leaving them alone.
They stood silently, trying to comprehend what they were just told. Hearing Gabriel's heart-piercing protests in the background.
Gabriel still screamed, tears flooding down his face. His face was red, veins visible.
After a while, Mark tried to approach Gabriel again but he couldn't. Gabriel pushed him away, refusing to move until someone told him where Claire was. He didn't want to accept the answer that was given to him. It was simply impossible.
Gabriel's state only made them cry more as they tried their hardest to get him up and out of the hospital's hallway, to no avail.
Gabriel stayed in one spot until Mark got a doctor to sedate him.
As Gabriel was barely comprehensive of anything around, they went down to the morgue being allowed to see Claire only through a glass window. Her body barely resembled her. It resembled a wax figure instead. Frozen with a likeness that wasn't truly her but rather an illusion. Whatever made Claire 'Claire' was gone.
Due to her being a part of the biggest trial in decades her death had to be investigated thoroughly. Court orders came almost straight away. Then Mark managed to take Gabriel back to the villa.
As Gabriel regained his full consciousness, he hasn't moved from the bed for days. He barely ate, just wailed in despair. Hours on end. And every waking moment broke him over and over again with a reminder of how his heart was just ripped out so abruptly and brutally.
It felt like the end of everything. The world has shattered into millions of pieces, slowing down and speeding up at once. It seemed like a haze as time flew by. Barely noticeable seconds, minutes and hours.
The world was imploding, silently falling to pieces, crumbling.
He didn't seem to notice people that walked in and out. He didn't notice Alex or Mark or Zoe or Gina. He didn't notice Martha or Jonathan or any of the maids. He didn't care.
He didn't eat for days driving Martha into madness.
"I'm not hungry." Gabriel replied in a hoarse voice as Martha placed a tray beside him a few days later.
"Claire made it." She said calmly. Gabriel looked up at her as if she were crazy. "While you were abroad, Claire made the number of meals and froze them. She wanted you to eat well. She wouldn't want it to go to waste." She let out a sigh as she walked away leaving Gabriel alone. She couldn't stand the sight of his despair and his surrender of life.
Gabriel hesitated. He hasn't eaten in days and the smell of the food made him nauseous. But it was Claire who made it. One of the last things Claire has made. He slowly sat up and took a bite. It was delicious but yet it was difficult to swallow. It was a pain of knowing that there was an end to it and that he will never have anything that Claire cooked again and that soon all of her will be gone as each last of her everyday marks on everyone's lives will vanish.
He didn't think as to why Claire froze meals for him. He didn't think.
Once he ate barely a few bites that he could stomach, he let himself fall back into despair.
A few days later Eva walked into the room. Her silence was everything. She sat down at the edge of the bed and placed her hand on Gabriel's back. His sobs became silent and his tears started drying out.
"I'm so sorry, Gabriel." She managed to utter, at last, her words barely leaving her quivering lips.
"He killed her." Gabriel said as he punched the pillow. "He killed yet another person whom I loved."
"Father?"
"He doesn't deserve to be called that." Gabriel answered with all his pain and fury in his voice. "He's a murderer. He took my Claire away."
"Gabriel…"
"He did it."
"You're certain?" Eva asked.
"Yes."
"Okay." She nodded. "Then when you're ready we can take him down."
"You didn't believe me when mum died."
"I didn't not believe you either. I was struck by my own grief and I thought that you were consumed blindly by yours. But… I saw the trial. I saw his rage. I believe you. You must find a way to take him down. Don't let Claire's work go unfinished."
"Why are you telling me that now?"
"You need to keep going for Claire." Eva said as she lay down on the bed beside him and hugged him. "But for now, let's stay still." Eva sobbed beside him. "You need time to grieve."
"Eva, I've tried to protect her." Gabriel said between his sobs.
"I know. There was nothing more you could've done." Eva's words were hardly reassuring but her presence and her sorrow made it feel like his own grief was okay.
Eva stayed with him for a few hours, leaving his house to give him space.
Once she left Gabriel finally stood up. The world was spinning as he did. His legs barely carried his weight. He wasn't sure where he was going at first but then he walked into his study.
Gabriel sat down at a desk and moved the papers out of the way when he found a square box. A very box with a gift from Claire that he saw a couple of weeks earlier at this point, just before he went to the States. He hesitated. He didn't feel like he should open it without Claire's explicit permission but then, that wouldn't come. He gently broke off the sealing of it, his hands trembling as he did. And when he lifted the lid he found a CD in it with no picture of an album but rather a neatly handwritten 'Cuore mio'. He stood up and rushed to put a CD in a player. The notes sounded through the room with clarity but yet with that impurity of a sound of a recorder. Claire recorder herself playing the piano. It was a composition like no other. She must've written it, he was sure. And then, there were their favourite melodies. Gabriel sat down, listening to the music that echoed through the office with a heavy heart. And that's when he realised that she knew. She knew. She cooked him meals for when she was gone. She wrote him notes. She played for him. She knew that she was going to be gone and she was prepared. This hurt him even more. She knew that he couldn't protect her. Gabriel sobbed until the music stopped. He picked a slim folder out of his desk and rushed out of the office and a house, grabbing a car which he probably shouldn't be driving and speeding until he reached a house within the suburbs of the city.