He kept pacing in her room, not really knowing what to do.
The only sounds present were the echoes of his muddied boots on the pristine clean floor and the constant beeping of the machines. He spared one glance at the figure lying in the too-white bed, then another at the monitors to make sure that everything was indeed fine.
Nothing had changed in the last six hours and Owen was growing restless.
The nurse that came to check up on Claire shot him a pitiful look as she handed him a bag of ice wrapped up in a towel. Owen thanked her with a nod and pressed the cold material to the side of his face, now swollen. The doctor that had patched his knuckles up had assured him that there was no permanent damage to his face, that he only needed to keep the swelling down, hence the ice pack.
Owen couldn't believe it had only been a few minutes. He could still hear the girl's anxious cries, her small body being whisked away as Owen fought with the police officers. They had to restrain him, or he would have destroyed half the furniture in the room in his anger and desperation to reach the girl.
But they took her away.
And he was helpless. He couldn't even defend her. He couldn't protect her like he had promised.
And what would Claire say?
Despite everything, he was still glad she was unconscious when it all happened. But she had the right to know and he'd need to tell her, sooner than later. Because he was fairly certain she would ask for Maisie the minute she was lucid enough to notice she was still stuck in a hospital bed and that the girl was nowhere to be seen.
Once the nurse left, Owen turned to Claire's sleeping form and sat in the chair he had been occupying for the last six hours. One hand still held the ice pack to his face, while the other gently grabbed her left hand, mindful of the IV. He fought the urge to replace a stray lock of hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. She was getting paler by the hour and, despite the nurse's silence, Owen knew Claire's prognostic did not look good.
The wound was too deep, they said.
It was bound to get infected, they said.
And it had.
Dammnit it had and Owen had just stood there, watching the doctors helplessly and only half listening to what they were telling him about Claire's injuries, his head suddenly deep underwater as flashes of bloodied teeth filled his vision.
"You have to wake up," he chocked and for the first time in hours, tears spilled down his face. "I need you Claire."