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So if you saw my picture and clue on the site you know this chapter is pretty short. It also has Clare talking about what she went through so it may be hard for some people to read. And the whole thing is in Owen pov.

Ch. 2 My Heart Twists with Guilt

(OWEN)

Everyone's silent for several minutes, Mom holds me and all I want is to be with Clare, to hold her and never let her go again. Mom is telling me it's okay and Clare's safe now, that it's not my fault but I still feel like I should have done something, tried harder, gone looking for her. I don't care what Mom says I failed Clare and our child but I will spend the rest of my life making it up to her and our baby.

"Just tell us what you know; you were in Europe so you didn't know Clare was pregnant?" Detective Dixon asks.

"No I already told you I had no idea, if she had told me she was pregnant I never would have left or I would have come home right away," I respond getting a little angry because I'm pretty sure I just told them all this.

"You said something about a break up e-mail?" Dr. Anderson questions.

"Yeah a scathing one, it was from Clare's account but she said her mom sent it. It was scathing and I'm pretty sure I still have it," I reply clenching my fists just thinking about the e-mail but I know it wasn't from Clare. "When I came home Clare had moved, someone else was living in her house. I heard through the grapevine that she'd gone to Africa to be with her sister. I didn't even try to look I thought she hated me and she'd gone to Africa to get away from me. I moved on, I tried to anyway, I told myself I had and that I needed to but I kept thinking about her and I never stopped loving her. Everyone thought she'd gone to Africa; the only person that didn't believe and kept looking was Adam. He tried to tell me that she wouldn't go to Africa, he tried to get me to look but I wouldn't listen, I should have listened, why didn't I listen?"

"It's not your fault Owen and Clare is safe now and we'll make sure that she stays safe," Mom assures me.

"Who is Adam?" Detective Dixon queries.

"Clare's best friend, Adam Torres," I tell them and Detective Anderson's phone rings. He walks out of the room to answer it while I put my head in my hands worried about Clare, guilty over what she went through and that I just gave up. Worried about our baby and hoping that we can find our child.

"We found more than sufficient evidence at their residence to arrest Clare's mom. Uniformed officers are going to her place of work to make the arrest," Detective Anderson tells me when he sits down again.

"What kind of evidence?" I inquire.

"I really don't think you sh…"

"No I have to know," I snap without meaning to cutting him off, "Clare was out there for seven months and I need to know what happened."

"A lot of cash, medical equipment, prenatal vitamins, bottles of ketamine, chains on the wall and bolted to the bed in Clare's room. Officers are still combing the house," Detective Anderson informs me.

"Isn't ketamine a date rape drug?" I question.

"It can be used as one; it's used before surgery as an anesthetic and as a horse tranquilizer. They found several bottles but we don't know what they were used for yet. I think we have enough, we'll need a statement from Clare when she's up for it, just call us and we'll want to talk with Adam as well," Detective Dixon tells me handing me his card.

"Adam's dad is a lawyer you'll probably have to go through him, better his dad than his mom," I comment pocketing the detective's card. "Wait Clare said there was a doctor, a male one that helped her mom," I tell them remembering this detail.

The detectives nod and leave, when they're gone I pick up the table, that I up ended in my fit of anger, to put it back when the door opens. I expect it to be a nurse or the doctor but it's Dad!

"I spoke to Principal Simpson and he'll get Clare registered back at school. I also spoke with Andy Callaghan," Dad tells us. Andy is our family lawyer, normally he just does simple things like my parents wills and the trusts for me and Tris but we always go to him when we have any legal matter, if Andy can't do it someone in his firm can. "He's drawing up papers to give us emergency custody of Clare, he'll take them to a judge and we should have them at our house ready to sign by this evening. She can legally move out and move in with us but her mom would still maintain parental rights. Tris will sleep at Maya's house tonight, I spoke with Maya's mom, I thought it might be easier for Clare on her first night back."

"Thanks Dad," I say with as much of a smile as I can muster right now. I already put the table back and I'm sitting down again.

"I also hired a private investigator to start looking for your baby; she's the best in all of Toronto. She'll be coming to the house tomorrow night to speak with you both but she's starting the search right away," Dad informs me.

"Thanks Dad Clare will be relieved to hear that. I can't believe I'm a dad, I don't know if I have a son or daughter, what they look like or anything. I hate Clare's mom, I hate her for stealing Clare from me, for stealing our baby from me. She didn't even give us a chance. I would have come home, Clare could've moved in with us but Helen just took everything from me!" I growl going tense and getting angry again as my fists clench, mom puts her hand on my fist.

"At least we got Clare back and we'll get your baby back too," Mom assuages in a calming voice and I release a breath but don't really calm down.

Mom and Dad start talking about what we need to do to move Clare in and soon a baby. Clare and I can move to the master suite downstairs right behind the kitchen, the washroom connects to a smaller room and that can be the baby's room. My parents have the master suite on the second floor. Right now the one downstairs is used as a guest room but we got lots of those, our house has six rooms. We also need clothes for Clare and toiletries, everything she'll need day to day and school supplies. Mom and Dad are still talking when a doctor comes in.

"Clare's out of surgery and in recovery, it went well but we're putting her on antibiotics. She can have no sexual activity for at least 8 weeks, probably more like 10. She'll need a follow up in two weeks and keep an eye on her. No strenuous activity for a few weeks, make sure she'd getting lots of water and fluids, if she has a fever, abnormal bleeding or spotting or abdominal pain she should come back in. You can go see her if you'd like," the doctor says and I run out of the room to be with Clare.

There's a nurse putting on an IV bag when I run in, she looks at me but only smiles. Clare is still unconscious but I don't care, I sit on the bed and take her hand, brushing one of Clare's curls from her face.

"She'll wake up soon but she'll be pretty groggy for a while," the nurse tells me.

"I don't care I'm just happy to be with her again," I reply and the nurse smiles again. She leaves the room just as Mom and Dad come in.

"Dad and I are going to pick some stuff up for Clare, you can take my car we'll see you at home," Mom says kissing my head and then Clare's.

My parents leave and I sit there waiting for Clare to awaken, after a few minutes her eyes begin to flutter and then open. Her eyes lock onto mine, I smile at her, she smiles back but also starts tearing up.

"I was worried it was all a dream and I was still chained in that room," she tells me while squeezing my hand as tears fall down her face.

"No your nightmare is over, I have you now, you're safe with me and your mom has been arrested. My parents are getting emergency custody of you and you're moving in tonight. Dad even hired a private investigator to find our baby," I tell her and she starts crying harder. "Clare why are you crying?" I question wiping her tears away.

"They're…happy…tears…" she tells me between heaving breaths as she sobs.

I move up a little and put my arms around her, holding her tight. Her head rests on my chest and she grips tightly to my t-shirt.

"I'm never letting you go ever again, you are safe and I will never let your mom hurt you or get near you again," I assert.

She still cries for a few minutes and I just hold her and tell her I love her. When she finally does stop and looks up at me, she wipes her tears from her face and gives me a soft kiss.

"I love you too, you were all I thought about for 33 weeks," she tells me and I smile but I feel even guiltier. While she was thinking about me I was doing everything I could not to think of her. "Well you and our baby, and Adam, I thought a lot about Adam," she admits and I laugh a little.

"I can't really be jealous that you thought of Adam, I know he thought about you," I tell her as the door opens and the doctor comes in.

The doctor tells her everything she told me, gives her all the same instructions and gives me a bag with some prescriptions. After the doctor leaves a nurse comes in to check Clare's vitals, Mom already signed the discharge papers so once Clare's IV is done she can go.

"Adam called while you were in surgery, he wants to see you. I told him if you were up for it I'd bring you over after the surgery," I inform Clare while she's dressing again.

"Yes I want to see Adam," she nods. I help her finish dressing and we go out to my mom's car. I drive her to Adam's house and she hesitates getting out of the car so I go around and open her door. "I'll be with you the whole time," I assure her.

"It isn't that I just can't believe I'm here. I had nothing but my memories, hopes and dreams for seven months. I pictured this house and yours so clearly in my mind, I could walk every inch of them and sometimes it felt like I was really there. Then I'd open my eyes only to find it was an illusion," she says her voice starts out bright and happy but by the end had dropped into sorrow and misery. It's heart breaking and I wish desperately that I had a way to take back the last seven months and do them again, that I could somehow keep her from ever going through all that she did, all of which I haven't even heard yet.

I give her a gentle kiss, she takes my hand interlacing our fingers and we walk to the basement door. As soon as we appear at the glass Adam leaps up and runs over before I even have the door open. I let go of Clare so that she and Adam can embrace. Drew and Bianca are also in the basement, sitting on the sofa but Dallas is at practice.

"I knew it; I knew you wouldn't go to Africa. No one believed me, no one listened but I knew it," Adam tells her pulling away to look her over and then hugging her again.

"Welcome back Clare," Bianca says smiling at her when Adam lets Clare go and we all sit on the sofa.

"Yeah welcome back, so if you weren't in Africa who e-mailed Adam from your account every couple of months and where have you been?" Drew asks bluntly but it is what we're all wondering.

Clare bites her lip and takes my hand, I interlace our fingers kissing the back of her hand. She hasn't talked yet, her head is down but I can still see tears in her eyes. Adam puts his arm around her and she takes a deep breath before speaking.

"Woodbridge, I've been in Woodbridge," Clare replies. I swallow hard, she was thirty minutes away, I didn't save her and she was only thirty minutes away.

"After you moved I searched for a new residence nothing came up," Adam tells her.

"Mom moved us fast, she bought the house under her maiden name," Clare replies.

"But why'd you move and if you were that close why didn't you just come back?" Adam asks her and his tone is full of hurt.

"I couldn't. Shortly after Owen left for Europe and you guys went to Boston I found out I was pregnant," she informs them.

"So your mom found out and sent you to a convent or something?" Bianca postulates and Clare shakes her head.

"I took a home pregnancy test and it was positive, we always used protection so I was shocked and I almost wrote you and e-mail telling you. I wanted to be sure though and pregnancy tests can give you a false positive so I went to the clinic to get a blood test and be sure before I told you. The blood test came back positive too and I was going to e-mail you when I got home only Mom was waiting for me. I was in such shock over the pregnancy test that I left it on the counter and Mom found it. She was furious, she started yelling, telling me that you were no good and I'd thrown my life away. We argued and then she hit me, she slapped me so hard that I was knocked back, I hit my head and blacked out. When I woke up I was locked in the closet and mom was gone, I'm not entirely sure how long I was in the closet. I didn't feel well from hitting my head, I was dizzy and had trouble staying awake. When she finally did let me out of the closet I was weak and all I wanted to do was sleep. She told me to go to bed and we'd talk about it in the morning, I thought…" Clare's voice cracks with pain and regret, she swallows, takes a breath and begins again, "I thought she'd come to her senses and let off some steam and we'd just go back to arguing."

Clare stops again barely able to speak; she bites her trembling lip and takes a few deep breaths. We all just watch her, Adam and I holding her and she clinging to us.

"Drew can you get her some water?" I request after a couple of minutes. Drew nods and goes to the fridge; he gets out a water bottle and hands it to me. I open it and give it to her; she takes a few sips and starts again.

"I woke up when I felt something on my wrist; my mom was handcuffing me to the bed. I struggled against them and asked her what the hell she was doing. She told me I couldn't be a teen mom and she wouldn't live with that shame but I was lucky because she found a solution. She said it would be great for us and give us a better life, she told me that there are a lot of couples who can't have children and for one reason or another are eliminated from adoption and foster programs. She informed me that she'd found one such couple who desperately wanted children and didn't care if it was a boy or girl as long as it was healthy. Apparently the couple is quite wealthy and they'd offered Mom a lot of money. I begged her to let me go, to let me keep my baby. I told her you and I would raise it together," Clare tells me looking in my eyes and my heart breaks.

Picturing Clare handcuffed to a bed and begging her own mother for her freedom and the right to raise our child is heart wrenching. I'm also outraged! I knew Clare's mom could be a bitch sometimes but how could any mother do that to her teenage daughter. My anger boils inside and I tense up, Clare squeezes my hand and I let out a breath but relax only slightly.

"Mom told me that I would never see you again, she was going to make sure of it. She left my room and I tried everything to get out of my handcuffs. I tried everything to get out of the handcuffs, I struggled so hard I twisted my wrist and passed out from the pain. When I woke up Mom was in my room, she showed me the e-mail she sent you, she was rather proud of it. I didn't write it Owen, it was all her words I never sa…" Clare is blubbering and becoming slightly hysterical so I silence her with a kiss.

"I know, I should have known all along but I know now," I remind Clare and she nods taking a deep breath before continuing.

"She kept me handcuffed, feeding me with protein shakes. She kept giving me shots, some didn't seem to do anything but one made me sleepy, I found out it was ketamine," Clare tells us and I growl while Adam and Bianca gasp. Drew growls too after Bianca tells him what ketamine is. After a minute Clare continues, "I was kept mostly sedated for almost two weeks and it was in that time that the doctor came. I don't know who he is or how Mom found him but he was the only other person I saw. He examined me and he wasn't gentle at all, not that Mom ever cared. Mom had been packing that whole time and one day she told me we were moving. The doctor even helped us, they moved most of our stuff during the day in a truck, Mom sedated me and handcuffed me in the washroom so they could move out my room. When they came back it was night, Mom gagged me and had the handcuffs behind my back, she took me out to the car and put me in the trunk. Our new house was bigger and Mom told me she bought it with the first payment from the people that were going to buy my baby. I was taken to my room, it was a bed and a bunch of medical equipment I have no idea how they got. There was a chain attached to the wall with a metal collar and Mom put it around my neck. The whole time Mom was telling me how this was the best thing and we would have a better life after this but all I wanted was to get away and be with you."

She's not looking at me this time, she's looking at my hand holding hers and she's sobbing. I am drowning in guilt; my heart is twisted with it. I search for something to say but nothing I could ever say would take away her hurt.

"I am so sorry I wasn't there, I love you, I never stopped loving you," I tell her. She nods a little but doesn't look up.

"So your mom e-mailed me too?" Adam asks cautiously after a few minutes of silence, other than the sounds of Clare's sobbing.

"Yes, she knew when you came back you'd want to see me and she couldn't just send you a hurtful breakup e-mail like she did with Owen. So she told you I went to Africa to be with Darcy, she posted it on my facerange and e-mailed Alli and anyone else that e-mailed back. She destroyed my phone so it couldn't be tracked, told Principal Simpson I'd gone to be with Darcy and basically erased me," Clare says.

Now I'm a mix of overwhelming guilt and tremendous outrage, I begin to picture her mother dying in a number of torturous ways.

"No she didn't Clare I never believed it and I never stopped looking," Adam asserts and Clare looks up to smile at him.

"Then you spent the last seven months chained to the wall?" Bianca questions and her voice cracks a little.

"Yes, at first the chain was long enough I could reach the washroom. Not that I needed it much, Mom mostly fed me by IV and protein shake. When I entered my third trimester they didn't want me to move much. I was given enough ketamine to knock me out, when I woke up the chain around my neck was much shorter and I had shackles on my wrists attached to the bed. Since I couldn't get up to go to the washroom anymore Mom put adult diapers on me," Clare confesses her cheeks going red with embarrassment and she looks down even more as she begins to cry a river of agonizing tears.

I hold her close, trying to be calm and loving for her but inside I'm a torrent of anger and guilt. I despise her mother and this doctor with every fiber of my being, I want to tear of the heads and mount them on spikes. It's too awful for me to even picture, thinking of Clare being chained and shackled to a bed, forces to wear diapers and treated worse than an animal makes me physically ill. I hold her a little tighter, reminding her that I love her and she's safe now. She drinks some more water and continues.

"I got very weak, not just from not moving much but mom barely fed me. She gave me nutrients through the IV, only enough to sustain the baby. She said the baby would take what it needed from me. I went into labor on Christmas Eve day; I was in labor for fourteen hours. They didn't give me anything and when I didn't want to push the doctor shoved his hand in and ripped the baby out. I didn't even get to see they just took it. I heard the cry, I heard but I didn't get to see," Clare tells us and now she's crying so hard she can't speak or talk. She puts head on my chest and just bawls.

I don't know which is stronger inside me right now, the immense outrage and deep hate I have for her mom and the doctor or the guilt. I also feel sick to my stomach, grateful to have Clare back and worried for our baby. And of course love for Clare.

Bianca looks sick and hops over the back of the sofa to run into the washroom and vomit. Drew looks green too but he doesn't vomit, he's got a blank and yet horrified expression on his face. I notice now that Adam is shaking slightly, a few tears running down his face.

We sit there, silent and sick over what we just heard, full of anger and outrage. When I can talk I tell them that her mom was arrested and we have a private investigator to find out baby. It seems like such small good news compared to what we just heard but it's something.

"How'd you get out?" Adam asks Clare when she's slowed her crying enough to talk.

"It took almost two weeks, for several days after I was still chained to the bed, on the longer chain again so I could use the washroom. Mom wasn't going to let me out; in her mind I has to stay chained until I saw things her way. So I pretended to, told her selling the baby was the right thing and we were better off. She was smart though for a couple of days she only let me out of my room when she was home and after giving me more ketamine. She installed an alarm system with cameras and wouldn't let me see the code, the house had no phone and she took her cell phone. I finally convinced her to let me off the chain while she went to work; she reminded me that she could watch the cameras. I spent all day in the house just walking and doing things and Mom finally trusted me. She didn't chain me that night but I couldn't run yet, she had the alarm set. When she left for work this morning I watched her from the top of the stairs as she put in the code. I couldn't see the numbers but I was able to figure it out from how her arm moved. I waited until she as in her car and driving off, then I put in the code and I ran. I hitched a ride and rand straight for DeGrassi," Clare says looking up at me again, "straight for you."

Okay so obviously there's another chapter to this I just don't know where I'm going to fit it in. I'll try for the week of Thanksgiving but I can't promise that, it might have to wait a while sorry guys. The next chapter will be searching for the baby, Clare adjusting to life and Helen's trial.