The following morning Non-enrique tells her what Wei claims he was doing and the girl who was only moping around the last day regains a shimmer of hope. So she calls up her friends and they agree to meet in the woods behind her house.
Once she heads into the woods she hears a familiar sound and sees bout 20 goblins either asleep, snoring or arguing with each other.
"What are you doing here?" Claire asks the goblins surprised.
"Waka, waka chaka." Wei's goblin familiar says, saluting in front of her while staring at her necklace.
"Wei asked you to keep me safe?" Claire says to herself, the feeling that she judged him to early gnawing at her.
"Heey! Claire we're here." Toby announces entering the woods and he and Jim meet up with the latina.
"Goblins?" Jim asks, reaching for his medallion when he sees the green creatures.
"They say Wei asked them to keep me safe." Claire informs her friends.
"And you believe that?" Jim asks doubtfully, summoning his armor just in case.
"I really want to." She says sounding depressed.
"Then let's go find out." Toby says, patting her shoulder and she nods, taking out her staff before summoning a portal to Wei, coming out at the bottom of the hill he brought her to 2 nights ago.
"He's here?" She asks herself, seeing multiple sticks with papers on them sticking out of the ground.
"What's all this?" Toby asks, taking one of the papers and reads it.
"Frank Orwell 1986."
"Who's that?" Jim asks confused, looking around sees many more names on the papers.
"Those are all the names of the swapped babies." Wei says, walking towards them, but stops on the downslope of the hill when he sees Jim tense up and Claire get fearful again.
"So what's this? You three want to kill me for this?" Wei asks, sitting down in the grass, on top of the hill, looking down at the three.
"What exactly is this?" Jim asks.
"I'm looking for Claire's brother." Wei says, tossing over the fetch which Jim catches.
"With this? How?" He asks, a portal swirling inside the ring-shaped object.
"Stick your head through and you'll see." Wei says, his eyes never leaving Claire, who feels overwhelmed by everything.
"We're not gonna do that." Jim says distrustful but Claire snatches the object out of his hand, taking a deep breath and sticks her head through the portal, her head popping out in the darklands and looking up she sees a massive tree like build with cribs hanging everywhere while goblins climb in between the cribs, feeding the babies or rocking them.
"Claire!" Jim shouts and shakes her worried, before he pries the fetch off from her head.
"You just saw the nursery of the darklands." Wei informs her.
"What happened?" Jim asks.
"I think he's telling the truth." Claire says hopeful.
"Let me see this." Toby says, taking the fetch and sticks his head through before taking it off with a yelp.
"Whoa that's one scary looking nursery. No wonder Non-Enrique is such an ass." Toby says, the fetch landing on the floor in front of them.
"Fine, I'll look too." Jim says, taking the fetch and sticks his head through.
"OK so if you were going to do that why not tell us beforehand?" Jim asks still weary of Wei.
"I only came up with it when Claire said she missed her brother and feels like she's betraying him the day before the dance." Wei replies.
"And when I tried to explain the other night... I don't know, I guess I'm just not someone you can trust completely." Wei says.
"Wei, I'm sorry. I don't know why but seeing you with what took my brother from me I thought you were only trying to remind me that he's gone and assumed the worst." Claire says guiltily, slowly making her way up the hill.
"I figured as much." Wei replies.
"Can you forgive me for this?" Claire asks hopeful when she arrives next to him.
"Yeah. I mean I failed anyways. I didn't find him yet. It was a bad idea for a surprise." Wei replies, Claire throwing herself against him for a desperate hug which he gladly accepts while getting knocked over by her.
"Soo... how can one get back to civilization now that you guys made up?" Toby asks awkwardly, Jim dispelling his armor.
"Here." Claire says, shooting a portal at their feet and they drop out in front of the troll market portal underneath the bridge.
"You're getting good at that." Wei compliments, squeezing her hand gently.
"I'm so sorry Wei. I'm the one going on about trust and that I love you yet I hurt you like this." Claire cries breaking down in his arms now that no one's watching.
"You love me huh?" He says, brushing through her hair while holding her close.
"Too soon? You don't believe me after how cruel I was to you?" She asks a bit fearful, hugging herself into his wide frame still.
"What are you talking about?" He asks confused.
"We never really said the l word before." Claire says awkwardly.
"I don't need some word to know how I feel about you." Wei replies, kissing her passionately.
"I love you too Claire." He says softly when their kiss end.
"Thank you, for everything." She says still crying a little and buries her head in his chest while he hugs her and rubs calming circles on her back.
"We really aren't a normal couple, are we?" Claire asks, looking up in his eyes while rubbing her hands over his torso.
"What makes you say that?" He asks.
"Just look at our development. We go from almost dry humping behind my house to barely touching each other cause I'm introducing you to my parents, to you sleeping over then to me freaking out for what in a normal relationship would have been the fear that you were cheating on me and here we are, declaring our love for each other. It's all backwards." Claire says, caressing his cheek.
"I don't care how we got here. I'm just glad we're here." Wei tells her, kissing her softly.
The two continue to relax in each other's embrace for almost 10 minutes, simply touching each other, Wei brushing through her hair with her wrapping her arms around his wide chest and arms.
"I should get back to it Claire. I must be close, there aren't many babies left in the nursery I haven't checked." Wei says, sitting up with her pulling herself close to his strong arm.
"Let me try. You already did so much." Claire says, flicking one of the nearby sticks, making it wobble.
"Is your goblin good enough?" Wei asks, brushing her colorful bang out of her eyes.
"Yes. I can manage." She says, giving him a peck before jumping up and she goes to collect the fetch, looking at it uneasy for a moment until Wei grabs her hand firmly but not enough to hurt her, only to give her reassurance that he's with her.
"OK. Here it goes." Claire says, sticking her head through and looks around, Wei picking her up and setting her down on his shoulders, raising her enough to get a good view at the babies' names.
"No, that's not him. Don't even need to check that one." Claire says to herself, pointing with one arm where Wei should walk while the other is holding the fetch.
"Wait I know that sound. That's his cry." Claire mumbles, picking up the sound of a crying baby admits the mostly sleeping ones and she spots a goblin climbing up some ropes to a crib about 3 meters above her.
"I think I found him but he's up so high. I can't see a name." Claire says, taking off the fetch.
"How did you check the high cribs anyways?" Claire asks him confused.
"I had a goblin loyal to me carry my fetch up. But he's probably not there at the moment. We better wait till evening to check if you're right." Wei says, his double bladed voulge unfolding and he slashes a cross into the ground to mark the spot.
"Alright. So what should we do to pass the time Claire?" Wei asks, helping the anxious girl off his shoulders and pulls her into a hug with her back pressed against the front of his body.
"In a perfect world we'd be making out and fooling around, but I'm waiting to see where my brother is... not really a good mood setter." Claire says.
"Yeah I can only imagine." He says understandingly.
"How about we train a bit." He suggests.
"Train, like help me control portals?" Claire asks.
"I think you got that down. I was thinking hand to hand combat or staff fighting." He says, rubbing her arms supportively while she's standing in front of him.
"Yeah I think that's a great idea. Who knows when and how Angor Rot will strike, better be prepared." She says.
"So how do we do this? Do you show me moves and I try to copy them?" She asks.
"I think that's a good second step, yeah." He replies.
"Second? What's the first then?" She questions confused.
"Physical training. I know you're in good shape in general but fighting shape is another story." He tells her.
"What? You think I'm too weak and can't handle it?" She asks accusingly.
"Some of it yeah. I had to do extensive training to get to where I am today." He informs her.
"Fine whatever." She grumbles annoyed.
"Claire. We don't have to do this, my feelings for you don't have anything to do with this. This is just to help you stay safe." Wei tells her, turning her to face him and looks at her with concerned eyes.
"I understand that in my head, my ego has to catch up though." Claire tells him, patting his cheek and the two spend the next 3 hours doing various trainings from working out to sparring to Claire summoning portals over and over.
That evening Wei checks in with his goblin friend and has it carry Claire up while looking through the fetch and she sees her baby brother safe and sound in the crib she thought she heard him from earlier.
"He's here. He's really here." Claire says tearing up, standing on Wei's outstretched hands with her toes, holding onto the floating fetch due to the goblin holding it.
"He's whoa." Claire says, having forgotten about her almost floating in the air hanging by the fetch.
"Waka waka." She says, sticking her head through the fetch and the small creature carries it down again.
"He's there. We found him." Claire says, letting go off the fetch once she feels herself sitting on Wei's shoulders.
The fetch falls to the floor with the portal in it disappearing.
"That's great. Now I just need to memorize the location." Wei tells her, rubbing her knees softly.
"Thank you for all this." Claire says looking down at him lovingly.
"Come on, let's get you down to earth again." He says, lifting her off his shoulders with ease, holding the sides of her stomach.
"I know this doesn't mean he's back yet, but I'm so happy." Claire thanks Wei, leaning into his chest, her arms circling around him.
"We'll get him back." Wei promises, hugging her back and she places soft kisses on his collar while he rubs her back.
"I believe in you." She says, looking up at him and leans up, kissing him passionately.
"That means more to me than you might believe." He replies, caressing her cheek while leaning his forehead against hers.
"What now? We still have a couple of hours of daylight left." Claire asks Wei, closing her eyes.
"I don't know about the whole day, but can I borrow your phone for a moment?" He asks, not having a mobile phone himself yet.
"Sure, but who do you want to call?" She asks surprised, handing him her phone after unlocking it.
"No one." He says and with a bit of difficulty turns on her music player app, a random song starting to play rather audibly.
"Ugh, how do I..." he asks frustrated, not being able to turn down the music.
"What were you trying to do?" She asks chuckling after taking back her phone and shutting off the music.
"I wanted to play music to make up for the last dance we missed the other night." He says, glaring at the mobile device and she grins happily, quickly turning on the music in a normal loudness and slips the phone back in her pocket, Wei staring at her smaller, skillful fingers the whole time.
"Thanks." He says embarrassed and looks at her nervously.
"You are a curious boy Wei. You jump into a one-way portal to save me without hesitation, but you are too afraid to take the lead during a dance?" She asks smirking up at him while placing his arms on her shoulders and wraps hers around his neck loosely as well, the two slowly swaying together.
"This isn't going that great is it?" He asks embarrassed after a couple of minutes.
"I don't mind if you can't dance well." She tells him, stroking his cheek lovingly.
"Thanks." He replies, kissing the back of her hand.
"So, what else do you think we should do today?" She asks, moving closer during them swaying slowly, her cheek resting on his chest while looking up at her taller boyfriend with half closed eyes.
"I don't know. I'm really tired to be honest." He tells her.
"Don't tell me you stayed up all night for this." Claire says, looking over to the many makeshift flags sticking out of the hill.
"Yeah. I wanted to finish this and with Angor Rot out there, there was no time to waste." Wei replies, brushing her blue hair over so it's fixed behind her ear again.
"You really are stupid sometimes." She says emotionally, stopping the music and steps out of his arms, grabbing one of his hands and pulls him over to his backpack.
"What's wrong?" He asks confused, seeing her in a mix of being worried and upset.
"You need to sleep Wei. You can't be reckless like this and vulnerable with how dangerous Angor Rot is." Claire tells him worried, taking out her staff, which unfolds and she shoots a portal underneath them, coming out in the woods behind her house.
"Come on, we'll get you to bed now." Claire tells him, dragging him over to her house.
"Hi Claire-bear. Oh hello Wei." Her father is barely able to greet the two while he was reading a book on the couch and catches sight of her daughter dragging Wei behind her up the stairs.
"Lie down, now!" Claire orders, dropping their bags on her chair and sits him down on the edge of her bed.
"I told you I don't sleep like... fine I'll try." He starts to say, folding when he sees the stern look mixed with worry etched on her face.
"Good." She says, kicking off her shoes, Wei doing the same and lying down on the bed stiffly.
"Come on Wei, relax. I doubt Angor Rot knows where I live and even if he came, you couldn't possibly be in a better position to protect me, couldn't you?" Claire tells him.
"I guess." He replies.
"Just try to relax, for me OK?" Claire says softly, one hand interweaving with one of his and the other exploring torso slowly while softly breathing in his ear, lying facing him directly against him.
After a while of coaxing him Claire finally got Wei to fall asleep and joins him in the slumber shortly after.
Her father coming to check on them not long after and only smiles relieved, seeing them only sleeping next to each other.
"Sleep tight sweetheart." Her father says quietly, closing the drapes in her room quietly before leaving and closing the door.