What? A snapshot? Yep, I surprised myself too. More, I was looking for a break from working on my baby raptors (as I've been calling it) outline. Need to start writing, but it's giving me trouble. So... you get this. :) Enjoy.

Coming Clean

The sound of the door into the garage hitting the wall with a loud thump had Claire jumping slightly in her chair at her desk. She had been so engrossed in her work she hadn't even heard the garage door and Owen arriving home.

Claire's eyebrows rose in surprise as she heard Owen growling at the dog

"Dammit, Murphy, get out of my way," he said, his voice drifting into the office.

She could hear a bit of a scuffle, before another bang as the door was slammed shut.

"Murphy! I said move it!"

Pushing back her chair, Claire was about to get up to go see what was going on when she heard Owen storming past her door. A few seconds later, she could hear him pounding up the stairs. It was so out of the ordinary, as normally when he was mad he never seemed to make a sound as he moved about, simply disappearing from sight.

A small whine broke her from her thoughts, and Claire looked down to see that Murphy had rounded her desk and was now sitting at her side, looking up at her pitifully.

"What happened, Murph?" she asked as she reached out and scratched Murphy behind the ears. The dog immediately shuffled forward, sticking his head onto her lap, letting out another sorrowful whine. "What's got your dad so upset?" Murphy didn't answer, just pushing closer to her, and so Claire just continued to scratch lightly behind his ears, soothing him.

A couple minutes later, she was surprised when she could hear Owen now stomping loudly down the stairs, before he started banging around in the laundry room, the tap to the sink turning on briefly, and cupboard doors opening and closing. Finally, the door into the garage opened again, before swinging shut behind him.

When the silence had fallen again, Claire looked back down at Murphy who now had his eyes closed.

"Should we go see what your dad is up to?" she asked him, but Murphy didn't move. "C'mon, Murph. Let's go check it out. See what's got him so upset."

Claire tried to stand up, but Murphy kept his weight on her, as if trying to keep her down. Chuckling, she pushed him back slightly until she could get to her feet. When she did, she noticed that he had his tail tucked between his legs and his head was down. Claire crouched down in front of him, giving him a quick hug and a kiss on the top of his head.

"It'll be okay. I promise."

Still, even with that encouragement, Murphy didn't follow her as she left the office and headed into the laundry room. Pulling open the door to the garage, Claire looked back towards her office. She could see Murphy's head peeking out of her office, but he didn't move any closer to her. Puzzled, but deciding it wasn't worth the effort, she stepped out into the garage and closed the door behind her. Probably better to question Owen without Murphy's presence anyway.

Almost immediately she could hear Owen muttering angrily, and she walked through the garage and out the open door as she looked for him. She found him standing beside his truck, the door to the driver's side wide open, and Owen bent over something within, a bucket of soapy water at his feet.

"What's going on?" Claire asked, walking over to him, but he didn't appear to hear her, as he didn't move. Reaching out, she rested her hand on his back, to try and get his attention. "Owen?"

At that, he straightened up with a start, almost jumping backwards as he spun around towards her. She was surprised by the stormy look on his face. He wasn't one to get mad easily. In fact, she'd always felt like he had endless patience, compared to her. Unless someone was being hurt. Then, he'd snap. But who could've been hurt?

"Owen?" she asked again, placing her hand on his arm. "What happened?"

She watched as a myriad of emotions passed over his face before he let out a huff, his shoulders suddenly relaxing.

"It's nothing," he finally said, although judging by his expression, that was far from the truth.

"Clearly it's not nothing," she countered. "What's got you so upset and Murphy looking so down in the dumps?"

"It's stupid," Owen said, squatting down and dunking a sponge that Claire hadn't noticed he was holding into the soapy water, before squeezing it out. He stood back up and turned back to his truck, leaning back in and over the seat.

"Did you spill something?" Claire asked, trying to peer around him and into the truck. "What are you cleaning up?"

"I–" he started before cutting himself off. Claire waited him out. "I wish," he said after another moment, as he pulled back to once again dunk the sponge in the water.

Claire leaned closer to the truck, for the first time getting a bit of a whiff of the inside. Her nose wrinkled, as she tried to identify the odor. She could see now that Owen had pulled out the few things that normally sat on the console between the seats, and that it and the driver's seat were both wet.

When he moved to duck back into the truck to keep cleaning, Claire stepped back, taking the opportunity to look him over carefully, for the first time noticing that he was no longer wearing what she'd seen him in earlier.

"Did you change?" she asked, looking from Owen to the truck again. "Wait, did you spill your drink on yourself? Is that why you're annoyed?"

"Nope," he said curtly.

"Why won't you just tell me what happened?" she pressed, watching as Owen stepped back and picked up the bucket of water before walking around his truck to the other side.

"I took the truck through the car wash," he finally mumbled out an answer as he bent over the passenger seat, rubbing it vigorously with the sponge.

"Did you forget to close the windows? I did that once," Claire admitted. "Never again, though. That was not a fun car wash."

"I wish that was the problem," he said, pausing to look up at her, his expression pained. "I feel so stupid." He shook his head, before looking at the seats briefly and then raising his gaze back to hers. "I didn't realize Murphy had never gone through a car wash before."

"Why would that matt–oh. Did he knock over your drink?"

"Like I said, I wish," Owen grumbled.

"Then what…? Oh. OOH." Claire could feel laughter bubbling up inside of her, but she tried hard to push it down, knowing that Owen wouldn't appreciate it. Not when he still looked so annoyed. Instead, she pressed her hand to her mouth.

"He freaked out," Owen continued. "He was scrambling all over the truck and barking, and I was trying to keep him calm. I know he didn't mean to, that he was scared and couldn't help it, but… ugh."

"Poor Murphy," she replied, glancing over her shoulder and back towards the house.

"Poor Murphy? You mean poor me," Owen countered. "Getting peed on was not part of my plans for today."

"Yeah, but at least you knew what was going on," she reminded him, biting her lip so as not to laugh. "Murphy probably thought the world was coming to an end. Add on you snapping at him when you got home and no wonder he's so sad."

"I think you've got sympathy for the wrong person here," Owen grumbled in response, his attention back on the truck seats as he continued to scrub. "Murphy wasn't peed on, and barked at in the ear and–"

Circling the truck, Claire stepped up behind him and wound her arms around him. "Sounds like you've had a rough day."

"I have," he agreed, somewhat poutily, as he stood up and turned in her arms. She heard a slight splash as he dropped the sponge, before he wrapped his arms around her. He rested his head against the top of hers, as he let out a sigh. "I may have overreacted," he admitted after a long moment. "But to be fair, I was caught off-guard. Probably payback for using the car wash instead of just washing the truck here."

Claire suppressed the chuckle that wanted to escape, and just held him tighter. "Hey, at least, we know not to take Murphy through one again. And, at least, your truck has leather seats. Imagine if it had been mine."

At that, they both looked into the garage where her car was sitting parked. Owen winced. "Yeah, I guess it could've been worse."

"Not just worse," Claire added, a shudder running through her. "But also a whole lot shittier."

If we're lucky (both you readers and me) there may be some more snapshots coming as I work my way through my new story. In the meantime, if you didn't read Edge of Evolution (which was started after the last snapshot posted), go check it out as it's now complete. And, as always, don't forget to drop a review.