Author's note: Well, it's my birthday, but it's you guys who's getting a treat :) Not that anyone asked for it, but it's been a year since I finished this story, and it's my second favourite fic I wrote for Clawen, so... I guess it deserves a proper ending.

The only thing worse than having a pity party was perhaps having a pity party organized for you by someone else.

Just how pathetic was she, Claire wondered, sitting across the table from Karen in a small café, that her sister had the urge to do that. Yet, for once, it felt easier to simply comply instead of coming up with more excuses that kept towering over her, threatening to collapse any moment and bury her under their weight.

"I'm glad you could make it," Karen said after the waitress brought over their coffee and chicken salad sandwiches.

Claire pulled her cup closer but didn't touch the food, her stomach churning at the smell of the dressing. "Yeah, sorry, I've been-"

"Busy, I know," Karen nodded.

Claire cleared her throat before they jumped into the old argument about avoidance and all kinds of other crap Karen seemed to be an expert at spotting lately. "I got the job."

That got her sister's attention. Karen put down her coffee, gaping at Claire with a mixture of disbelief and hope. "Really?"

"It's no big deal. I just need something to keep my mind off…" She trailed off and focused on stirring her coffee.

Karen nodded. "So, how are you doing?"

Claire hated that part. Not the question so much as the way it sounded – like she was dying, or being forced to wear an ugly sweater for a family photo.

"Good, actually." She admitted, looking up again. "The public hearings are finally over." Frankly, hearing her name on TV was starting to get tiring, and the end of official investigation felt like a much-needed relief.

"And what about, ah… Owen?"

The mention of his name stung, but Claire shrugged it off. "I'm sure he is aware about it as well."

Karen regarded her apprehensively. "No, I mean… you okay with him leaving?"

Claire's face fell. "With him what?"

Karen looked guilty and maybe mildly panicked for a moment, and so much more sympathetic than Claire could bear, her throat tight. She was suddenly feeling sick, too overwhelmed with the chatter around them and the bitter smell of coffee mixed with the scent of cinnamon and eggs hanging in the air.

"You didn't know? He left, Claire."

xoox

The house was quiet when Owen walked through the door, but Claire's car was in the driveway, and it didn't take him long to find her in the living room, curled up in the armchair, one knee pulled up to her chest. She was staring vacantly at something outside the window, her eyes puffy like she'd been crying, and maybe it was just the lighting, but his chest squeezed at the sight of it nonetheless, a fierce pang of protectiveness shooting through him like a bolt of lightning.

His own brain hurt from the sheer amount of thinking, his thoughts no clearer than when he'd cut their conversation short this morning. In the seven hours between then and now, he'd managed to calm down and see that he had overreacted, driven by fear of losing her, however Claire never answered his texts, her phone going straight to voicemail when he called. Thus, by the time he got back from work, there was nothing left inside him but overwhelming panic, so strong it settled deep in his bones, rendering him rigid to the core and utterly terrified.

"You stayed here all day?" Owen asked for lack of better ideas, and grimaced at how it came out – all wrong and cold and business-like, as if she was an unwanted guest. He didn't mean it like that, his voice grating even to his own ears.

"No," Claire shook her head, not quite looking at him. He didn't move. She bit her bottom lip, eyebrows pulled together, and then let out a soft sigh. "Just thought we could talk when you came back. I'd like to clarify the situation before—The last time we had a mild misunderstanding, you disappeared for months." She cut off and he flinched. "I wasn't going anywhere. I'm not. They made me an offer, I said I'd think about it. That's all there ever was."

Owen frowned, watching her closely – the gentle slope of her nose, two studs in her left ear. Puzzled and so world-weary he feared he might collapse right there and then, he exhaled through his nose, his hand running over the scruff on his cheek.

"Then why-"

"Just in case." She finally turned to him, her expression tired. "It's a standard procedure because it really doesn't take long to add my name to the transfer agreement for if I decided to say yes."

He looked away, one hand on his hip and another pinching the bridge of his nose, willing the pounding headache away. He'd never felt like such a complete idiot. Certainly not in the recent past.

"I'm sorry." Chagrined under her stare, Owen cleared his throat. "Look, I didn't-"

"You really thought I'd do that?" It was meant to be a question, but it hardly sounded like one. She pushed herself up to stand and reached for her purse. "Because it's what you did?"

Owen's hand dropped to his side, his shoulders sagging under the weight of her accusation, which still felt like a sucker punch even though it was true. "That's not fair."

"Life is hardly ever fair," she noted flatly, not looking like she needed his answer. "I know, trust me. I was right there every time it screwed me over."

"I'm not the one keeping secrets, Claire."

He regretted the words the moment they came out of his mouth.

"Maybe I wouldn't have to if I didn't have to chase after you to tell you things," she fired back.

"Okay, I admit I shouldn't have jumped to—" He sucked in a sharp breath. In that moment, Claire could hear the wheels in his head turn – scattered, panicky half-thoughts churning and grating against one another. "What was I supposed to think?" He asked helplessly.

She bristled momentarily, his question making her hackles stand on end. It wasn't even what he thought so much as how fast he'd assumed the worst that turned her wistfulness into anger, and then deep weariness. It was like they kept bumping into one another, moving around without any sense of direction, and it frightened Claire how breakable their little world turned out to be, how fragile and insubstantial.

Part of her wanted to believe they were past this mistrust and doubts, but knowing that they weren't left her in this odd, unfamiliar place she didn't know the way out of.

"I don't know, Owen," she breathed out. "Maybe you were supposed not to look for more excuses to blame me for something or wait for me to mess up. Take your pick."

With that, she stepped around him, a whiff of her perfume enveloping him like a cloud.

"You're leaving?" Desperate as he was for an end of this conversation, this wasn't what he had in mind. He followed her into the hallways, franticly trying to find the right words to get her to stay. "Claire, I'm sorry. Don't go, please. Can we… can we talk about it?"

"I can't do this now," she said quietly, stuffing her phone into the pocket of her jeans. "I was not trying to get back at you, if that's what you were thinking, but I can't deal with you looking for hidden motives in everything I say or do." Her eyes were bright when they met his, but there was certain, calm determination to her that felt frighteningly final.

"It wasn't that-" Owen started and faltered. Swallowed past a lump in his throat. "Claire..." Her name fell from his lips like a plea.

"You don't trust me, and maybe I don't trust you, either." A short, humorless bark of a laugh escaped her chest, a bitter, sharp sound that slashed through both of them. "If I were, I wouldn't be imagining an emergency bag in the trunk of your car, packed and ready to go. And if that really is the case, then what's the point of all of this?"

"Do you really think that?" He asked her softly, watching her reach for her coat and her car keys, too dumbfounded to react, or even think straight.

"We both do," Claire muttered, fumbling with her purse, pushing her hair back. Pointedly not looking at him. "Always have."

xoox

"Aunt Claire? You think they're okay?" Gray asked, kicking at the fresh snow with the toe of his boot as he walked beside her, purposely avoiding the cleared path, his nose red from the cold.

"Huh?" She tilted her head, trying to keep up with the fountain of his energy.

He glanced up at her. "The animals. On the island."

They never talked about the park anymore, not after the case officially got closed and there was no need for either of them to bring it up ever again. It was almost hilarious, really, the way they used to dance around the topic – as if a dinosaur could break through a wall and burst into a room if they didn't shove this subject as far away as they possibly could. Tiptoeing on the dinosaur eggshells, as Claire used to call it – never out loud, though.

But the anniversary spiked up the interest of the press again, drawing the public's attention to the island. The company had no choice but to reveal the footage from what used to be the most ambitious establishment in the world – the handlers and the construction crew working on cleaning up the mess, tending to the animals. This, in turn, immediately attracted the animal rights activists, which, of course, resulted in a massive feud between them and the people who wanted to burn down the whole island and be done with it for good.

As a result, the current COO of Masrani Global, together with none other than Ian Malcolm, did an interview with Anderson Cooper last night, praising and condemning the place for 40 minutes. She considered not watching it, mindful of a major setback she'd gone through the last time she allowed herself to get sucked into the park's affairs, but a glass of wine helped her get through it without feeling sick in her stomach or throwing her TV out the window, which she proclaimed a major success. The show was full of big words and soundbites, and the PR teams on both sides were probably crying with pride.

Claire toasted to herself when the credits started to roll and her name hadn't been mentioned once.

It left a bad aftertaste nonetheless, and when Gray, somewhat distressed after watching the report (which, Claire suspected, Karen didn't approve of) showed up at her place this morning, she didn't have it in her to pretend that nothing happened and send him off to school.

She took him out for brunch instead, and they successfully avoided talking about Malcolm or the park for a few hours. Until now.

"I'm sure they are," Claire said, watching him climb onto the bench, hop off it once he reached the end, climb onto the next one – and so on, until the lane ran out of benches.

And for once, she wasn't lying. She really did think the animals were doing great. They were, after all, the most valuable assets the company was owning, and whatever Masrani Global was planning for them, it was in their best interest to take the absolute best care of the species they created.

She didn't tell that to Gray, though, choosing to stick to explaining that, of course, they were being taken care of because it wasn't the animals' fault that the tragedy unfolded the way it did. All they did was follow their instinct, and the whole point of having trained professionals there now was to ensure that they were healthy and happy. It was hard to tell if he bought it entirely, but the crease between his eyebrows smoothed out.

After Owen, Gray was perhaps the most concerned of them all for the fate of the island, and Claire knew that the news about the island affected him deeply – much to Karen's dismay. Still, on some level, Claire felt responsible for keeping his worries at bay. After everything she'd inadvertently put him and Zach through, it was probably the least she could do.

They were nearing the gate when Gray's face lit up and he sprinted forward, propelled forward by excitement and all the sugar she allowed him to have earlier – the boy was a fan of breakfast food! And when Claire followed him with her gaze, she spotted Owen's SUV parked next to her car. He was leaning on the hood, squinting in the harsh wind, the collar of his jacket turned up against the cold.

He fist-bumped Gray when the boy bounced over to him, seemingly just as pleased by the encounter as Gray was. Even from twenty feet away, Claire could hear her nephew launch into a detailed catch-up, barely pausing to take a breath, his grin bright and contagious. He paused only briefly when her shadow fell over him.

"Honey, why don't you wait for me in the car?" Claire told Gray when she finally reached them, handing him the keys.

Chuckling, Owen pulled the boy's hat over his eyes before as the latter waved his goodbye.

"Are you stalking me?" She asked Owen, stuffing her hands deeper into the pockets of her coat. It came out lighter than she expected though, a curious comment rather than an accusation, the days spent apart managed to abate the storm of their fight.

He jerked his chin toward the building across the street. "I work here." His eyebrows arched, and now that he said it, she noticed a shelter's logo on the front pocket of his shirt, peeking from beneath his unbuttoned coat. "Are you stalking me?"

Claire looked away before he noticed a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth against her will. "The park was Gray's idea," she noted.

"Sure. Let's blame everything on the kid," Owen agreed easily as if it was their inside joke. "I just…" He shuffled his feet, stalling. "I wanted to make sure you were okay. You wouldn't return my calls..."

"Most people would take a hint," she suggested without malice, turning to him again. It was an awkward kind of dance, not entirely familiar to either of them anymore. The anger that flared up so fast inside her during their conversation a few days ago had long morphed into wistful longing. It truly hurt to think that after everything they'd been through, there was still some room left for pettiness and mistrust.

In the messages he left on her phone since then, he was apologizing profusely for being such an idiot (his words, not Claire's), his voice scared and desperate, his plea for forgiveness making her heart ache. And she started to wonder… Where was the line between a minor setback and a major, life-altering confrontation? Weird as it sounded, it wasn't as defined as one might think.

Owen's lips twitched into a rueful smile. "Well, you know me. I never learn."

Claire glanced back. Gray was sitting in the passenger seat of her car, his nose buried in his phone – playing Angry Birds, she presumed – not at all perplexed by the interruption of their 'out and about'.

"I wanted to apologize," Owen added quieter when she didn't say anything. "I overreacted and I'm sorry." He caught her gaze and held it. "You're the last person in the world I'd want to hurt, and it seems like it's the only thing I've been doing ever since we met." He rubbed his neck, ran his fingers through his hair. "I trust you, Claire. You're the only one I trust, but when I heard this guy say that—Look, I'm not a complete moron, most of the time. I know there's nothing I can offer you. Nothing that counts." A pause. "But I don't want to lose you. And it was stupid, and I miss you, and I'm sorry."

"You've already said that," she noted softly in a whoosh of breath that got swept away by a gust of wind.

He grimaced. "Yeah, I had the whole speech and all, but it sounded better in my head."

"It sounded alright." She considered him for a long moment. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe I already had everything I needed?"

He let out a rueful half-laugh. "Maybe it would. If you stayed in the shower for a couple more minutes and I had a chance to think it through."

Claire smirked, shaking her head. "You really are a moron."

"This almost sounds like you're not kicking me to the curb just yet." His words were full of poorly suppressed hope what left Claire feeling warm all over, her fingertips tingling.

"Easy, Cujo. The decision is still pending," she cooled him down, although not as sternly as she meant.

The line of his shoulders relaxed visibly nonetheless, his expression a mix of relief and amusement. "How about I take you out for dinner sometime? You know, clean slate and all that."

Claire paused, studying him in the harsh winter sun that did little to hide the tired lines around his eyes. This close to him, her resolve was crumbling, and if she wasn't giving in to it just yet, she knew she would be soon. "I'll think about it," she promised, knowing that it sounded more like a yes than a maybe. Hoped he knew it, too.

He was trying, they both were. Maybe their efforts, if nothing else, deserved another chance.

The next night, she showed up at his place with a bottle of wine, radiating jittery, nervous energy, which earned her raised eyebrows and a curious once-over from Owen once he opened the door, and it was only then that it occurred to her that she didn't quite think this through, not past this moment.

"That thing you said about taking me out for dinner…" Claire started in lieu of a greeting, breathless from the dance that her heart was doing in her chest.

"Yeah?" Arms folded over his chest, he leaned against the doorframe.

"How about we stay in and cook something instead, probably burn it and order Thai food?" As far as olive branches went, this wasn't the worst one she could offer, or so she hoped.

He stepped out onto the porch and wrapped his arm around her, pulling her against his chest. "Thank you," he whispered, pressing a long kiss to the top of her head.

xoox

Claire Dearing was anything but a fatalist. She believed in working hard and getting things done, followed by even harder work if she didn't like the results the first time around. She believed in human mistakes and making decisions, and not blaming them on the alignment of the stars. There were rewards and consequences to her actions, and sometimes it was hard to tell them apart but she was trying to learn not to be defined by either of them. God knew, she'd spent years of her life doing just that, and it never got her anywhere.

It was funny how the life refused to be divided into black and white only.

Whichever category her thing with Owen fell into – a reward or a consequence - the only thing Claire knew for sure was that it was feeling good. Somewhere deep inside – so deep she did her best not to venture there unless she had no other choice but to do it – she was certain that if someone asked her to go back in time and undo that day a year ago at the expense of everything she had in her life now, she wouldn't go for it. Not a chance. Good thing, it was only a hypothetical possibility.

"You should take it," Owen said one night as she was going through her notes for the meeting in the morning while he was watching The Amazing Race on TV.

Sprawled on his couch with her legs stretched over his lap, Claire looked at him over a stack of paper in her hands. "Take what?"

"The job. In Boston." He watched her quietly for a few long moments. "If it's what you want, you should take it."

Her expression clouded with confusion. "You want me to leave?"

Owen blinked. "No! God, of course, not." He heaved a weary sigh.

Claire put the budget report down on the coffee table and crawled over to him, climbing into his lap, her legs bracketing his and her hands flat on his chest.

"Okay?" She drawled, watching him weigh his next words, not quite certain what brought this on. It had been a couple of weeks now, and ever since she told him at the park that moving was not on her agenda, he never brought it up again.

Owen shrugged, looking up at her. His hands instantly found their way to her waist, pulling her closer. "You've always said that coming here was a temporary thing," he reminded her as if she hadn't spent the past few months considering the exact same thing. "If there's something else out there, something bigger—You don't have to stay here. Not for me."

She looked away, and he absently brushed her hair from her cheek, looping it around her hear. "So, when you freaked out about the idea of it…"

He groaned lowly in his throat. "Not about the idea," he protested as his hands moved up her back, cradling her closer to him until she had no other choice but to look him in the eye. "I freaked out because I thought you were gonna up and leave without so much as a goodbye." His voice dropped. "I didn't want to lose you. Not again."

"And now-" Claire tilted her head to the side, her eyes narrowed. Her fingers closed around a fistful of his shirt.

"If worse comes to worst, I can always come with," he suggested lightly, albeit tentatively, waiting for her reaction. "If you want me to, that is."

A smile spread across her face, so majestic he thought his heart would stop from looking at it, held captive by the sea-green of her eyes.

"Really?" She whispered, leaning closer to him, her face only a breath away from his, their noses almost touching, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. From this close, he could see every freckle sprinkling her nose – golden specs he couldn't get enough of.

Owen laughed. "Really."

His hands slid further up her back, tangling in her hair, framing her face. He dropped a kiss on the corner of her mouth before pressing his mouth fully to hers, cutting her off mid-giggle. And before they knew it, he was pulling her down with him, shifting to press more comfortably into the cushions.

Neither of them found out how the episode of The Amazing Race ended.

xoox

Zach's 18th birthday was a messy occasion.

He insisted on celebrating it twice – on the actual day with the family, and then having a party with his friends the following weekend. Karen grumbled and huffed in frustration, mainly over the fact that Owen was the only one who was invited to both, but she gave in eventually, which Claire found hilarious beyond words.

"I just don't get it," Karen muttered, her brows pulled together as she ran her eyes down the grocery list, trying to decide if she forgot anything.

"Aw, come on! Like you wanted mom and dad at your 18th birthday party," Claire laughed. "Even I wasn't invited, if memory serves me right."

"Yeah, but… That's not the point!" She protested. "You were, like, in diapers."

"I was 12," Claire gasped in mock horror.

"And a tattletale," Karen accused her.

"I was not!" Claire argued, and added, "Besides, Owen's not coming. You can stop making a big deal out of it." Karen leveled her with a skeptical gaze. "Trust me, spending a night with a bunch of teenagers is not exactly his idea of fun."

"Please, tell me more about his ideas of fun," she said flatly, and Claire giggled, traitorous colour rising up her cheeks. "And now I kinda wish he'd go."

"Why?" Claire picked up an apple from the bowl on the counter and sank her teeth into it.

Her sister shrugged. "You know, to chaperone?"

Claire stared at her. "Have you met Owen? If you get him to chaperone, someone would have to chaperone him."

Karen leaned toward her across the counter, studying Claire closely. "So, are you guys okay?"

Claire peered at her apple, unable to hold back a smile that was starting to feel like it had found a permanent residence on her face. "We're… working on it," she said.

It was odd, she had to admit that much. In a good way. The kind of way that didn't make her want to pack up and leave and never look back. And the kind of way that made her stop waiting for him to pack up and leave and never look back.

In the course of her adult like, there was more than one instance when Claire felt like she was racing parallel to everyone else, not among them, the sense of proud independence often mixed with profound loneliness. There was a balance to her life, she was sure of that, and, contrary to what her sister claimed sometimes, she would never deny the satisfaction of her academic and professional achievements that took over certain aspects of her relationships. However, for most of her life, intimate connections were something that Claire treated with caution and curiosity, like a project, or a jigsaw puzzle she needed to assemble in order to see the full picture, never with passion and abandon she used to expect of herself at some point. She watched those puzzles fall apart around her only to come back together for someone else, depicting another image entirely.

There was freedom and safety in being a silent observer, in staying on the periphery and watching the world unfold before her. She taught herself not to feel left out, alienated, consciously choosing calculated steps over plunging into the unknown.

A part of her expected her old life to disintegrate after the park, for Owen to walk off into the sunset with a cheeky grin and a promise of a soon return they'd both know he would never keep. With equal parts of dread and anticipation, she had started gathering the pieces she knew she'd have to put together and assemble into something new long before everything was really and truly over. Claire Dearing, thinking 10 steps ahead at all times, come hail or high water.

Not one part of her was prepared for the opposite, and for a girl with an itinerary on the first date and a solid five-year plan, this was like jumping into the water in the middle of the goddamn ocean. She had no other choice but to learn how to swim.

"You look happy," Karen noted.

Claire's face softened. "I am."

She and Owen went shopping for gifts the following weekend (upon his insistence, too), and it quickly became apparent to Claire that he was disappointed to the core that Zach had already outgrown everything that could be purchased in a toy store, thus killing his chances to mess around with the LEGO dioramas and whatnot. She almost felt sorry for him, until they passed Toys R Us and saw a three-foot tall skeleton of a T-Rex in the display window that made Claire take an involuntary step back, her breath hitching.

It looked surprisingly real, if somewhat undersized, and very detailed, too. And suddenly the noise of the mall and the never-ending buzz of conversations around them left her suffocating, her heartbeat spiking. Gray still had nearly a hundred dinosaur figurines in his room, as well as the books and a plushy toy of an Apatosaurus from when he was 5 sitting on the shelf. But this felt different somehow, scarier. It reminded her of all the things she never could predict or foresee, things that could drag her back to the very pit of a nightmare she'd barely found her way out of.

The boom of the voice in loudspeakers above her head, the sound of a decorative fountain thirty feet ahead of them, a child crying – Claire's throat constricted in anticipation of a T-Rex stepping from around the corner, her mouth agape and her eyes hungry.

Owen's fingers laced through hers, sure and steady and real, and he tugged her away from the store, out of the way of the Sunday afternoon crowds, squeezing her hand until she stopped seeing black spots dancing before her eyes like a reminder of how none of this was over yet. And if it all was going to go away some day, she was only halfway there still.

"What do you even get to a 18-year old?" She asked a while later when the blood rush in her ears receded and her breathing evened out. Staring at the digital map of the mall, her eyes scanned the names of the shops.

Owen leaned against it, watching her chew at her lip in concentration with undisclosed humor. "The guy's getting a party where he's gonna play beer-pond with a bunch of other kids, high on sugar and freedom, and then kill it in Doom until they all go cross-eyed. Trust me, nothing short of a car or, I don't know, an unlimited credit card, will ever beat that."

She turned to him, frowning. "Do you think Karen would mind-"

"Yes, she would." He steered her toward Cinnabon, eyeing the displays with the hungry glee of a 10-year old.

"Wait, what was that about beer pong?"

In the end, Claire settled on concert tickets – for Zach and his guest of choice - and a small contribution to his college fund, which she knew Karen would appreciate. And Owen picked a video game box set containing, supposedly, the game itself and a few collectible items meant to leave anyone between the ages of 12 and 75 utterly ecstatic. And as she watched him choose it and pay for it, she couldn't help but wonder if maybe this was what she should get him for his next birthday, the glee on his face so endearing she almost forgot about their earlier encounter with a plastic T-Rex.

"What?" Owen asked when he caught her amused look.

"Is this a gift for Zach or for Owen?" She smirked, an eyebrow arched.

He rolled his eyes and attempted to ruffle her hair jokingly, but Claire swatted him off, glaring daggers at him and promising him that he was this close to being uninvited to her life, fully aware of it being the most blatant lie that ever came out of her mouth.

xoox

A few days later, Claire woke up in the middle of the night with a searing pain spreading over her stomach, intense and burning, twisting her insides into a tight knot. Her first impulse was to blame it on escargot they ordered yesterday at this new place in town where Owen took her for dinner. But it wasn't that. The pain was hot and pulsing, shooting through her in short, fiery jolts, so strong Claire couldn't inhale properly, cold sweat beading on her skin.

"Owen," she called quietly, panic in her voice morphing into a pained whimper.

He stirred behind her, warm and solid and safe, and for a moment, she almost believed that everything was going to be alright the way it always was with him around. And then another spasm ripped through her, making her nearly cry out in pain.

"Claire? Honey, what is-"

She gasped, curling in on herself, pressing her knees closer to her chest. Her breath was quick and shallow, her chest tight. Her fingers clutched a fistful of sheets in a desperate and futile attempt to keep the discomfort at bay.

Owen rolled out from under the covers in an instant, crouching near her side of the bed, his hands reaching for her hot, clammy face. He pulled the blanket off of her and let out a string of curses. She could feel it now too – sticky warmth on her thighs, the persistent tugs inside her growing more intense, the aftershocks merging into one another. For a moment, she thought she was going to be sick it was so intolerable.

"It hurts," Claire whispered, squeezing her eyes shut, and pressing her face into the pillow. "Why does it hurt so bad?" She tried to hold her breath. Tried breathing as slowly as she could. But it felt like there was a write-hot ball of barbwire twisting and coiling inside of her, trying to scratch its way out, growing bigger with every passing moment. A low, terrified sob escaped her chest.

"Claire, look at me," Owen pushed her hair from her forehead that was covered in beads of sweat, his mind racing. There was blood on the sheets, so much blood, and her face contorted in pain… "Oh, god."

"I'm scared." She could feel tears on her cheeks now, unable to hold them back, her hand clasped around Owen's, the other one clutching her stomach. He looked panicked and confused, and all she wanted to do was bury her face in his neck, for this agony to go away. Why wouldn't he make it go away?

"Baby, stay with me. Come on," Owen pleaded, turning her face up by her chin. "Claire, look at me. It's going to be okay. You hear me? I swear to god it's going to be fine."

Her eyes were burning, her vision blurred. She could taste blood in her mouth from where she bit into her lip to stop herself from crying out so hard that the skin broke under her teeth.

"Claire?" Owen's voice sounded muffled now, as if it was coming from far away. "Claire, please…"

To be continued...

A/N: I'm sort of on a mission to finish my multi-chapters so let's see how that goes. Have fun and let me know what you think! Feedback is always ❤