A/N: UGH. I HATE THIS STORY. Well, no, I don't. But still, woefully unsatisfied, I can do better, you guys know the drill. Apologies both that this took so long and that it's very filler. More content soon, promise. As a warning, this chapter may be triggering. I am very sorry if it is.
And UGH that last episode! I have thoughts, many thoughts, but I will not bore you with them. Should you want to hear them though, drop me a message on my Tumblr (thatiranianphantom plus the usual dottumblrdotcom).
As always, enjoy, leave thoughts!
And not that it's at all relevant, but I just downloaded the movie soundtrack of The Last 5 Years and while Jeremy Jordan is and always be flawless, I can't even listen to my FAVE song from that show (Still Hurting). It just sounds BAD. Queen!Lea Salonga all the way.
That is your theatredork rant for this chapter.
(break)
When Clara is eighteen months old, she is barely recognizable from the tiny, squishy baby she once was. Her eyes had settled on blue, and Erin is glad, because they're Jay's eyes. She has his nose, too. A little flatter, but distinctively his. The wisps of hair Erin hastily gathers into pigtails every morning are dark and silky. The toddler is chubby and absolutely adorable, and has yet to meet a stranger anywhere she goes.
Erin works shorter hours, now. She loves her job, always has, always will. But her daughter needs her more. And truthfully, Erin doesn't know where she'd be if she didn't have the adorable shriek of "MA!" greeting her every day. Daycare is close to the precinct, and by 5pm, she's ready to snuggle her daughter again.
Which is why one day, she finds it slightly odd when Jay requests she finish her paperwork, and he'll pick Clara up. Odd, but not newsworthy. She finishes up around 7pm and drives straight home.
The apartment is dark when she gets there, except for a light from the kitchen. Perplexed, Erin follows it and comes to a setting of candles scattered all around the kitchen and dinner already on the table. Clara is sitting in her high chair, babbling, gumming on something in her hands.
Erin makes her way over and pries what looks like a small box out of the toddler's hand.
Her heart freezes when she realizes what it is.
Fingers trembling, she opens it.
The ring is beautiful, but better still is the note affixed to it, in messy scrawl.
Will you marry daddy? it reads.
And when she turns around to see him, she can only nod and throw her arms around him.
(break)
It's a small wedding.
She has many people offer to take Clara but the child stays in her arms as she says her vows, and really, she'd have it no other way. During their first dance, Clara lays on her mother's chest, asleep, Jay's arms around them both. It is, to this day, Erin's favorite memory of the wedding.
And later, Clara tumbles across the dance floor, haphazardly, wobbly, but walking towards Erin and she thinks that memory may top it.
(break)
Clara starts Kindergarten at four. Erin and Jay send her off with a little Minnie Mouse backpack (it's almost the size of her entire body) and her lunch bag in her hand. She cries the first few days, it takes the teacher's aide to pull her off her parents. Sixteen times in the first few days (she's counting) Erin considers pulling her baby out of kindergarten but knows, in the back of her mind, that it is necessary for her child to develop.
And by the end of the first week, Clara tumbles happily into the classroom, hanging her backpack on the little hook marked "Clara H.".
She is a high energy child, a force to be reckoned with. She makes her point known, even with slightly garbled speech. When Clara gets sick, they know it not by her temperature, but by a slightly slowed pace (and it is usually not a concern, Clara exudes health).
(break)
April 6th, 2016, the image finds its way onto their screen.
A dead little girl. Damn. It was points like this where she hated her job.
Not just any dead little girl, though. Erin immediately recognized the full face, the upward slant of the eyes.
A child with Down Syndrome. Her heart freezes and she catches Jay's eyes, his expression mirroring her own.
The little girl has no ID. She isn't in the system. They can't find her parents.
They do, however, find injection marks all over her body. The ME is confused, can't find anything in her blood to indicate a drug infection.
Erin and Jay drag themselves to Clara's school at the end of the day, utterly dejected and just wanting their little girl.
The first sign is that Clara is the last to come out. Typically, she is banging on the window, frantic upon seeing them.
The teacher guides her out by the hand and tells them she seems to be feeling a little under the weather. She has a slight temperature, and it's probably to be expected with so many children getting sick.
She still greets them with the same warm smile, the same shriek of "MAMADADDY!" Erin can't wait any longer, scoops her child up in her arms and presses her nose to the soft hair of her living, breathing child.
She never lets her go until she tucks her child into bed, amid the usual protests for just one more "so-ree" that she can finally gaze at her little girl's face.
Slightly flushed, her beautiful almond eyes are closed, her hand in a loose fist at her temple, dark hair splayed over her pillow.
She is, as she always has been, the most beautiful thing Erin has ever seen.
She cannot possibly understand how anyone could have a child as beautiful as her Clara and not care that they are missing. Erin doesn't even know what a day without Clara would do to her.
And yet, this child. Her life was taken, and she has no family, no identity, nobody who cared that she was gone.
Tears fall on the bedspread. Erin wonders when she became so softhearted, but knows the answer to that in the back of her mind.
Pressing a kiss to her baby's head, she leaves the room. Without even bothering to change, she falls onto the bed, and into her husband's arms.
This child, this little girl, she will not fade away, unnoticed. They will find out what happened to her, Erin vows to herself.
Her husband's arms tighten around her, and the strange sense of trepidation rests in her stomach, but her eyes close anyway and she falls into a fitful sleep.