Ok, guys, this one's the last chapter. Sorry it's been so long, I've been on long long shifts in the hospital – as a reward for being so patient, it's the longest chapter yet :) There should be a short epilogue up soon, too! Thanks to all of you that have been with me for the whole ride, those of you that picked up somewhere along the way, and especially those of you that took two minutes to review! Couldn't have done it without you!
Part XI
They start looking for a nanny for Lottie when she's nearly at her first birthday – Claire'll be going back to work in weeks now, and they'll need someone they're feeling comfortable leaving their little girl with. But no one seems to make the cut. It's Owen, actually, who seems to find a flaw in every possible candidate, no matter how qualified, how experienced, how friendly when they meet. Obviously, Lottie liking the nanny is a must, but she's a social little girl, full of smiles and laughs and willing to rest on anyone's hip offering tickling, lullabies and a cup of warm milk, so Owen can't even use his daughter as an excuse.
It runs the pair of them thin, and alters their temperaments. Because Claire can't help feeling she's wasting both her own and the potential candidates' time when she's interviewing them, knowing Owen's going to find another excuse not to accept them. They stop talking to one another about it, but it runs through the air between them, and Claire finds herself sleeping restlessly.
She phones Karen in the end, in both desperation and to catch up with the sister who's been in something of a second first whirlwind romance the past year and a half with Gareth Johns, the tall, dark haired, olive skinned Navy SEAL she'd met at her sister's wedding. Gareth is everything Claire never knew Karen needed, charming, not too committal and kind hearted. He gets on unbelievably with Gray (Zach started college in the fall, both he and the still present Elise going to Madison), and they have another apartment now in the town, nearer Karen's work, and nearer Gray's new high school.
He's everything Scott wasn't, and somehow, that's exactly what's needed. In the moments Claire has to consider it, between middle of the night feeds, bickering with Owen about a nanny and trying to get a few minutes of ever-precious sleep, she couldn't be happier. There have been too many moments in the last few years she's felt almost guilty for this happiness she fell so unpredictably into, after her whole world came crumbling down, when her sister was still so miserable. These days, she feels a little warm swell when she sees her sister with Owen's old friend, and thinks how unexpectedly and yet somewhat easily everything turned out.
For both of them, she supposes.
"Morning, sis." Karen sounds chirpy. She suspects it's Gray's weekend with Scott, and her sister's talking to her from a lazy morning between the sheets with Gareth.
"Nannies." Claire groans. She can almost see the confused frown on Karen's face.
"Sorry?"
"We can't find Lottie a nanny. I know it's difficult, and I know there are a lot of boxes to tick, but Owen won't have anyone, no one's good enough… I'm going back to work next month, Karen, and I can't-"
"Breathe, Claire." She hears Karen sit herself up. "Hang on a sec…"
Claire rolls her eyes as she hears hushed voices in conversation. One's clearly Gareth. Really happy couples have always exasperated her, and that hasn't changed since she's been one half of an infuriatingly happy couple.
When Karen comes back on the line, Claire's patience is wearing thin. She hasn't slept for longer than an hour and a half at a time in the last week, and it's taking its toll.
"Claire, hear me out on this one."
Gritting her teeth, Claire doesn't say anything.
"Gareth's little sister Megan is in California, a few miles out of LA, I think."
Claire's eyebrows reach Alaska. "And?"
A slight huff from her sister. "She's got a masters in early childhood development, and nearly ten years experience looking after kids, from smaller than Lottie to when they get old enough to get the bus home from school by themselves… I can give you her number, if you'd like. Maybe Owen needs someone he knows he can trust…"
In that moment, Claire thanks God for Karen's sickeningly happy relationship.
Megan is perfect. Claire knows that from the moment she meets her, and there must be some sort of unspoken Navy SEAL rule that states you can always trust those whom fellow members of your platoon trust. Owen shakes her hand and smiles slightly loosely, but before long he's talking to her about working hours, pay and she's bending down and holding an incredibly animated conversation with Lottie about newts.
Claire feels a genuine weight off her chest, slightly less restrictions on breathing.
When she gets back in her business suit, tidies her hair and leaves her daughter with Megan, she doesn't feel the gut punch she was expecting, the fear at leaving her little girl all day for the first time in Lottie's short life.
She sheds a few tears on the way to work, however, it suddenly catching up with her, and Lottie having been so busy playing with Megan and a soft toy squirrel to even notice her mother leaving, let alone bother.
The first few weeks back at work are hard. Suddenly, work seems so inadequate now she's done something so much… better with her life. She never thought she'd be that woman, but suddenly realising that if there was only one thing in the world she could do she'd pick being a mother without blinking an eyelid, she acknowledges she's become that woman, with very little choice.
The first night, when she gets home and Megan's set Lottie down for a nap, and her little girl's sleeping soundly, she shuts herself in the bathroom and cries. Hot, heavy, ugly tears. Because the dawning realisation that Lottie doesn't need her mother by her side all day, every day, and forever is too much to cope with all at once.
That night, she sits with Owen on the decking, leaning against his shoulder, staring up at the blackness in the sky.
"I don't think Lottie even misses me."
She can envisage her husband rolling his eyes slightly.
"Claire, she's one. Someone she likes playing with, who changes her diaper and feeds her is taking care of her – she feels safe, secure, taken care of. And anyway, she knows her Mommy will be back every day, eventually."
"You think?" she sniffs.
"I know." Owen breathes, pressing his lips to her head. "She knows because she knows no one loves her more in this world than her Mommy and her Daddy."
There's a silence, and then Claire gives a little chuckle. "Somewhere along the line, Lieutenant Grady, you turned into a sap."
He'd never understood what other parents had said before about watching their children's lives fly by in front of them, but all of a sudden Lottie's toddling around in the sand, a huge, innocent smile on her face, slightly reminiscent of the tiny little smile her mother gives without even thinking.
It's her second birthday before they know it, and Karen, Gareth, Zach, Elise and Gray make it across to sit on the beach in the sunset and sing songs and unwrap presents with the little girl, who is definitely not a baby anymore. Along with a few moms Claire, Owen and Megan have met at the park with children Lottie's age, they watch the little girl blow out the flames on two candles, and then look immensely proud of herself.
Owen catches Claire's hand for a moment, the proud look in his eyes as he looks at their little one all he needs to say.
It's only a few weeks after that that Claire props herself up on her elbows in their bed, and gives him one of her smiles that tells him she's hiding something.
"She's still asleep." She breathes, closing her eyes in almost bliss for a moment. "She's getting really good, now."
He smiles, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "She's growing up. She's not a baby anymore."
Claire tilts her head slightly to one side, and lowers her eyes. "I miss having a baby around."
Owen half-snorts. "You didn't say that when she was teething, when she was colicking, the first few nights after we cut her milk down… you've got tunnel vision, you're not remembering how little sleep we had…"
"I miss having a baby around." She repeats, and then looks up at him, a sudden shyness in her eyes. "You fancy another one?"
He raises an eyebrow, unsure for a moment whether she's asking him, or trying to tell him something. When her smile starts to drop and she shifts her eyes again, he lets his smile widen.
"You got something to tell me, Claire?"
She blushes, and brings her eyes back to his. In that second, he can see so much in those eyes. There's excitement, apprehensiveness, joy, and the old fear of inadequacy he'd seen in them when she'd been expecting Lottie.
"I think I'm only seven or eight weeks… but I took a test. And then I took two more. And they were all positive." She reaches forward, cupping her hand around his cheek. "We can do this again, right?"
He nods, firmly, and then pulls her closer, pressing his lips to hers, clearing the tears in his eyes. "We can do this again."
Lottie's skipping across the sand when her daddy calls her over, asks her to sit down and hands her a strawberry popsicle.
"Lots, how would you like to be a big sister?" Owen smiles, "Have a baby brother or a baby sister?"
The girl seems to muse for a second before announcing "Think 'bout it."
Claire blanches slightly and Owen chuckles, taking his wife's hand.
"You don't get to choose, little one. There's a baby growing in your mommy's tummy right now, and soon, before your third birthday, you'll have a baby brother or sister."
The little girl frowns slightly, looking deep in thought. Then she smiles, as if having made up her mind.
"I want sister."
Ben isn't as straightforward as Lottie was. Claire's told to take time off work early and take bed rest with her high blood pressure, and, scans having revealed they're expecting a little boy, she follows it to the letter.
Megan sometimes seems the most excited of any of them, probably feeding off Lottie's excitement (once she came to terms with the fact that she was getting a little brother, the anticipation only seemed to escalate) and the exciting new idea of working with an older sibling in the early days. She helps Owen paint another of the bedrooms a shade of pale blue, and there's a stage where she seems to bring a 'for the new baby' present at least once a week.
Karen and Gareth, after getting hitched spontaneously and completely unaccompanied on a holiday in Vegas, without even the boys, which caused a huge family row with Gray (who's entered a stroppy teenager/junior in high school phase) for three days, until the younger Mitchell boy realised he hadn't ever seen his Mom this happy, are thrilled, but constantly joke about how they feel far too old for babies, and Claire and Owen aren't that much younger than them.
At night, sometimes, in the silence, with Owen sleeping curled against her and the soft sound of nothing at all from her daughter's room, Claire still worries. Worries that she won't have it in her to manage two of them at once, that she won't know what to do with a little boy, that she won't integrate them correctly and they'll grow up hating each other, and their parents for putting them in this situation. They're only night worries, however, and when she wakes up, especially after a good long sleep, with a clear head and daylight, she realises how ridiculous all the eventualities she creates are. She curls into Owen's side (whilst she still can, she's sure the bump's growing even faster than the Lottie bump did) and smiles to herself.
Her waters break two weeks premature, and she has an emergency C section when Ben insists on remaining footling breach. She's slightly groggier when her second baby's first put into her arms, but he's tiny, light, and Owen supports his head, and she finds tears in her eyes as she rests an exhausted forehead against her husband's shoulder.
"We did it again." She breathes, letting the little one latch on. "He's perfect."
The first time Lottie sees her little brother, in their mother's arms on return from the hospital, she frowns slightly.
"Bit ugly." She muses disdainfully, looking at her brother's screwed up eyes and sparse sprinkling of fair to medium brown hair.
Claire laughs, a light tinkle through the room. "He's no uglier than you were when you came out, young lady."
Lottie looks up at her with something of a disbelieving face, but doesn't argue.
After that, it's like she's auditioning for the role of model sister. She wants to help with everything, and although that's adorable and something both her parents are proud of, it's also something of a recipe for disaster. She's not even three yet, she's very good at getting under your feet, and she doesn't really know an awful lot about caring for babies.
A prime example is one afternoon when Owen comes in from work to find Claire and Lottie both sat on the floor in Ben's bedroom, the little boy sleeping soundly in his mother's arms, wrapped in a grey blanket, and a whole emptied baby bath on the floor across the room.
Owen raises an eyebrow as he looks through the door. "Anyone care to explain?"
Claire and Lottie start giggling, their eyes meeting, and then his daughter folds over laughing, and there are tears running down Claire's cheeks.
Momentarily, Owen wishes he could freeze the moment, indefinitely. It's so raw, spontaneous and characteristic, it's precious.
Your feedback would still be utterly appreciated this late in the game! It's always lovely to know someone's enjoying what you're writing!