#i 'cheat' my way through several shrines in this manner.
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sometimes i get upset with myself for not being able to figure out how a puzzle is Supposed to be solved (or knowing how, but being unable to do it) and then other times i just have to be glad it's solved
#libra.txt#the 'wind guide' shrine in botw has been plaguing me for months now#i couldn't figure out how to get the bomb barrel across and blow up#and then. i realised. i had bomb arrows.#sure it's not how you're /supposed/ to solve it.#but it was way easier to deal with than. y'know. struggling and crying over not getting it across.#i 'cheat' my way through several shrines in this manner.#i have a ridiculous amount of fire arrows and so i have cheated many a shrine where you're supposed to aim through the lanterns or whatever#too bad!#i only have a handful of shrines left......#i have one shrine quest left. and three shrines that i've found but not solved#and then five more to find after that?#i'm sooo excited#oh and since i bought the dlc i can do the champions' ballad and trial of the sword too!#that'll be exciting :-)#i'm really bad at puzzle games but i love loz a lot! so!#it just means i can pour hours and hours into a game. lol
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Untouchable (2/8)
Summary: A fresh-out-of-the-NAVY widower Owen Grady knows everything about the war. His own child? Not so much. He settles in his home town with his 5-year-old daughter in hopes of piecing their shattered lives back together. And then they meet Claire Dearing...
Okay so.... First of all, I’d like to thank everyone who checked out the first part! Posting it was rather nerve wracking, to say the least, and your kind words meant the world to me. I’m doing my best to make this story work - so, thank you! You’re the best!
ETA: I think it stays in the tags even with the text added below now. Hopefully tumblr fixed its issues. Sorry for the inconvenience :)
Have fun, and let me know what you think!
AO3 | Fanfiction.net
“Okay, man, what’s with the face?” Barry asked Owen a week later, giving him a curious look from under the car next to the one Owen was working on.
A dark-skinned man with smiling eyes, he served in the Air Force in Quebec several years ago. As fate would have it, he met a girl from the Midwest and moved to Wisconsin when his army contract came to an end. The relationship died eventually, but by then, Barry had managed to grow roots here, saying that the winters were just as bad in Madison as they were in Montreal, and the rest didn’t really matter. He wasn’t planning on going back to the Air Force, having had enough of that life, and this place was as good as any.
Sometime later, he opened an auto repair shop, choosing to be his own boss, but even though he had guys like Owen to take care of everything, he never shied away from getting his hands dirty because it made him feel useful. Besides, being stuck in the office all day, dealing with the paper work was driving him insane.
Before long, he and Owen bonded over their military past, their love for gingerbread cookies, and classic rock. It was an effortless friendship that involved grabbing a beer or two after work, running together now and then, or watching ball games while talking about nothing in particular. Harper adored him, fascinated by his accent, an endless array of jokes he had in store, and, if Owen was completely honest with himself, the way their small world wasn’t a shrine of grief when Barry was around, probably because he didn’t tiptoe around them like they were breakable.
“What’s wrong with it?” Owen reached automatically for his cheek. “Is there something on it?” They were permanently covered in grease, soot, and motor oil that seemed to have seeped into their skin, which apparently came with the territory – you could not possibly look clean and polished so long as you were buried under one hood or another for 8 hours every day.
“No, you look… what’s the word for it? Loopy.”
Owen snorted. “Loopy? Who says loopy?”
Barry flashed a smile at him. “Is this about a girl? Come on, spill!”
Owen picked up a wrench and returned to looking for loose fasteners he needed to tighten before his job here was done, his gaze skimming over the underbelly of a ’99 Chevrolet Malibu, following the curves and loops of tubes and hoses snaking before his eyes.
The shop was filled with a hollow sound of muffled voices, occasional clanking of metal on metal, and Bruce Springsteen singing on the radio, his voice fading in and out of the static in the concrete walls. Late afternoon sun was spilling through the windows tucked high near the ceiling, and the dust was dancing and swirling in the rays of light, not particularly bothered by the gravity, from the looks of it.
“As a matter of fact, it is,” Owen admitted after a moment or two, amused.
“That’s my man!” Barry let out a hearty laugh. “So, who’s she? What’s her name? Give me the deets.”
Owen chuckled. “Her name is Harper.”
“Dude, that’s your daughter’s name. That’s sick.”
“It is about my daughter, you nutcase.”
Barry huffed. “Okay, less fun, but I’m listening.”
Owen pulled his toolbox closer and rummaged through it, searching for a socket wrench. “I signed her up for some classes at that place where I do the VA work. And, man, she’s actually talking, you know? Not just to me or Mrs. Carmichael, but to, like, that teacher of hers, and a bunch of kids who go there, too. I haven’t seen her do that since--” He cut off, his face scrunched in effort as he turned the wrench a few times.
Since they stopped being a real family and turned into a Picasso painting of one, disproportionate and barely resembling the actual thing. All the required components were there, but they were not fitting the way they used to, or the way they should.
Instead of doing morning drills somewhere in Japan or the Middle East, he was working at Barry’s shop five and a half days a week. It wasn’t that bad a deal, though – in fact, Owen even liked it. There were rules to how engines worked, and he knew how to apply them to those that didn’t. For someone with a degree in Engineering and some experience with military jets, this kind of job was a piece of cake. He could do it in his sleep.
The VA wasn’t a planned gig, but one day several months ago, his current manager brought his old Ford to the shop for an annual check-up. They got to talking. One thing led to another, until Owen somehow found himself with a three-nights-a-week contract and his name on the goddamn poster, talking to the people who saw the world the same way he did. Much to his surprise, it sucked him right in. It was a relief to be back in his element again, except without sleeping in a tent and generally having a better quality of life, which made him feel more in balance somehow. Plus, he was allowed to use a gym and a pool whenever he wanted.
All in all, he had nothing to complain about. It just wasn’t what he’d ever imagined his life to be.
Barry stayed quiet for a long moment. “And that is why you look like you’ve won a lottery?”
“Sure feels like it.” Owen tugged at one of the gas hoses to check if it was attached properly, his gaze accidentally slipping to his watch. “Oh, shit, we’re gonna be late.” He wheeled himself quickly from under the car and grabbed an oil-stained rag that was resting on the hood to wipe the worst of grime from his skin. “She’s gonna kill me.”
Barry emerged from under a big blue SUV, his face streaked with the motor oil. “Harper? She’s two feet tall, man.”
“Three,” Owen muttered, tossing the rag into his toolbox and kicking it closed. “And no. Her teacher… ah, instructor. Whatever. She’d got this thing about tardiness.” He straightened up and started to reach for his hair to smooth it down, but reconsidered, desperately needing to wash his hands properly first, or better yet – take a shower.
“An old lady with principles, huh?” Barry smirked.
Owen offered him a crooked smile. “She’s got principles alright.”
There was no point in going any further here.
In the past few months, Barry joked a couple of times about getting Owen ‘back in the game’, but he quickly dropped the subject – either due to his manners, or because of the how Owen’s face contorted every time he brought it up. He didn’t know – couldn’t know – what it was like to be with someone for 14 years, feeling like he won a jackpot, and then watch them die. Watch them fade away day by day until there was nothing left but a shell of a person he used to know. All their memories, the good days and the bad ones, all the laughs and tears and longing – all gone like they were never there.
Owen asked Harper once what her favourite memory of her mother was, and she told him it was their tea parties. Gathering her dolls and stuffed toys around a small table in her room and pretending the two of them were princesses.
He wished sometimes it was all he could remember, too. Not the hospitals and Jenny’s pallid skin and her face scrunched with pain, or watching her sleep and wondering if she was going to wake up again, but their trips to the beach, and that time they took Harper to Disneyland for her 4th birthday. All the small moments bottled up for safekeeping.
This was not something one could get over in a blink of an eye and move on like nothing happened. Not that he wanted to, either. Keeping the memory of Jenny alive almost made him feel like she was still there, and the best way to do it was to hold on as tight as he could before it faded away. It frightened him. No, scratch that – it terrified him out of his mind. At this point, memories were all he had, and if they were gone – who would he even be in the end? There was a nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach, telling him that it would happen regardless, whether he wanted to or not, but Owen pushed that small voice away and pretended he could cheat his way out of forgetting.
Owen checked the time again and grabbed his jacket. “If Ned calls, tell him I’ll be finished by tomorrow afternoon, okay?”
“You got it.” A screwdriver clenched between his teeth, Barry slid back under the car. “Tell Harper I said hi.”
---
“I’m just saying it’s not fair,” Karen said, stirring her coffee vigorously. “Why do I get to do all the parenting and he still gets to spend half of the holidays with them?”
Recently divorced from her husband of nearly 20 years, she was trying to navigate the newly single-mom life with the grace and elegance of a bull in a china shop. All the simple things that neither she, nor Scott had to ever think about while they were living under the same roof suddenly turned into impossible problems. And the two boys caught in the crossfire didn’t find it enjoyable in the least.
“I thought this is what your divorce agreement was supposed to be for,” Claire reminded her sister, tearing a piece off her croissant and stuffing it into her mouth.
Karen glared at her. “I did not think it through, obviously.”
The coffee shop located stark in the middle between Karen’s office and Masrani Design where Claire was making the magic happen when she wasn’t teaching ice-skating tricks to preschoolers was busy at lunchtime, smelling heavenly of fresh bread, sweet pastries, and bitter, strong coffee. It was warm, too, which was her one and only condition in response to her sister’s invitation to have a quick bite together in a desperate need to vent about Scott’s demand to have their sons over for Easter after just celebrating New Year with them, which left Karen outraged. Understandably.
“I mean, he barely ever bothered to spend any time with them when we were living together, and now he’s suddenly a father of the year?” Karen huffed. “And it’s not like I can say no. We can discuss it, but he has the right…” She pursed her lips together and let out a frustrated huff.
“Come on, you know Scott loves them,” Claire told her.
Karen scowled at her. “Whose side are you on?”
“Well, can you do anything about it? Change the arrangement?”
“I could put a hit on him, maybe,” Karen grumbled under her breath.
“Thought so,” Claire nodded. “But! You can do something about that hideous couch of yours.”
“Don’t even start!”
“Honestly, Karen! I’m making other people’s houses look stylish, but I can’t help my only sister with a serious case of a very, very bad taste?”
“I swear to god, Claire--” She started with a warning.
And then someone shrieked, “Claire!” making a few heads turn. And the next moment, a small body slammed into her with enough force to nearly knock her chair over to the floor.
Claire’s arms closed instinctively around all forty-five pounds of pure excitement that was Harper Grady, purple backpack slung over her shoulders and heavy curls falling down her back.
“Harper!”
They all looked up to the sound of Owen’s voice booming over the lunchtime crowd to see him navigate his way between the tables with a takeout cup and a paper bag in his hand. He slowed down, the concerned lines creasing his face smoothing out when he saw Harper hanging from Claire’s neck.
“Oh, hey,” he said softer, his eyes darting quickly between Claire and Karen before settling on his daughter. “No running off, remember?”
The girl stepped back immediately, looking sheepish, but not particularly guilty. “I found Claire,” she announced, making it sound like she’d just unearthed the biggest treasure known to the humankind.
“I can see that,” Owen confirmed, turning properly to her at last.
They came back.
Claire wasn’t sure they would, even despite the fact that Owen Grady was working roughly a hundred feet away from her several nights a week. But they did, fifteen minutes before the next class, Harper basically bouncing on the balls of her feet as she watched Claire finish her warm-up over the barrier that was almost too tall for her to see over it. Pulled up on her toes, her hands gripping the railing, she followed each of Claire’s fluid moves, her expression utterly transfixed.
She said something to Owen – Claire couldn’t hear what it was from this far away and with the music playing – and he smiled and picked her up in his arms to help her see better.
Claire lurched into a wide backwards crossover, using it as a set-up for a flip jump and wrapping up her routine with a spin, delighted by the rush of air around her and the blur of the world that only felt real to her when it was slightly out of focus.
Later, Harper told her that she’d only seen things like that on TV.
Claire leaned closer to her, dropping her voice as if she was telling her a secret. “I’ve learned it from TV.”
“Really?” The girl’s eyes were wide as saucers now.
“Mostly,” she admitted, barely able to suppress her laughter.
They became a permanent fixture from then on. Three times a week, like clockwork, Owen and Harper Grady would walk through the doors. Sometimes, Owen would stay and watch the practice, other times he would wave his goodbye to Harper and come back in an hour, usually with a Cinnabon for his daughter, and once even with a cup of coffee for Claire. A simple gesture that she found beyond endearing – for its sincerity, if nothing else.
They never talked again after that Saturday evening, though, when he popped in after the gym with a heap of apologies, and he never once came by while she was practicing on the days when there were no classes. Not that Claire expected him to.
Owen Grady was an interesting man, witty and quick with smart comebacks, fun to talk to and, generally, very pleasant. Not to mention the whole dimples thing going on and the shoulders so broad he could probably carry the whole world on them without breaking a sweat. And tall too, his eyes smiling down at her from his generous height of 6’2”. But, at the end of the day, it didn’t matter. He was her student’s father. And on top of that, he also kept a pointed distance, and she had long learned not to mistaken politeness for something else.
“Hi,” Claire beamed at him to compensate for the five seconds of territorial fear his daughter had caused him. Across the table from her, Karen cleared her throat, and Claire finally remembered she was there. “Oh, Owen, this is my sister, Karen. Karen, this is Owen Grady, we… um, work together. And Harper here,” she tapped the girl on the nose with her index finger, “comes to my classes.”
They exchanged quick handshakes and a few pleasantries before Owen was back in a business mode. “Sorry to cut this short, but we really have to go,” he said. “Here’s your chocolate.” The cup made its way from his hand into Harper’s.
“Yeah, speaking of which,” Claire nodded. “We should probably go, too.”
She dropped a few bills on the table to cover their check and rose from her seat, and so did Karen, both of them reaching for their coats.
“Wow,” Owen whistled under his breath, giving Claire an amused once-over. “You can walk.”
“Pardon me?” Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
“It’s just,” he coughed, “I never saw you without your skates before. Kinda thought they were growing out of your legs or something.”
“You too, huh?” Karen hummed and Harper giggled as Claire’s jaw dropped.
“The world is full of surprises,” she deadpanned.
A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “So I see. You,” Owen pointed his finger at his daughter, “door. Now.” His phone started to ring somewhere in his pocket. “Excuse me, I really need to—“ He nudged Harper to the exit with a quick wave of goodbye over his shoulder. “Nice meeting you.”
“Likewise,” Karen called after him, and turned to her sister, her eyes gleaming with a dangerous interest. “Okay, what was that?”
Claire pulled on her coat, struggling with thick, uncooperative buttons all designer items seemed to be so fond of and mentally swearing off everything that didn’t come from Sears from then on. “I told you, we work together.” Together, in the same building – same difference.
“No, you don’t,” Karen followed her to the door. “I know everyone you work with, and they’re all gay.”
“Not Lowery,” Claire protested, stepping out into a bright, chilly afternoon.
“Don’t get me started on Lowery,” Karen rolled her eyes as the door shut closed behind them. “He’s bald. And he has dinosaur figurines strewn all over his desk. And what kind of name is Lowery, anyway?”
“Ouch! Petty much?”
“Would you go out with him?” Karen demanded.
“Well, no,” Claire admitted.
“My point exactly, so stop changing the subject. What’s this guy’s deal?” Her sister looked up and down the street, searching for Owen and Harper among the other passers-by.
Claire tightened her scarf around her neck, squinting in the sunlight and kicking herself mentally for forgetting her gloves in the office. “You saw a wedding ring and a kid, right?” She asked, hesitant to go into the dead wife story for the reason she couldn’t quite explain even to herself.
It was bad enough Karen was on her case about ‘fixing’ her love life for years now, but dragging innocent bystanders into it felt plain cruel. Besides, the details didn’t matter – one look at Owen Grady was enough to see that he was still deeply and unapologetically married. To a ghost, to the memories, to whatever kept him going. If there was one thing Claire could understand better than anyone, it was holding on to the past.
She buried her hands deeper into the pockets of her coat and gave Karen a pointed look. “Now, can we please talk about your ex-husband some more?”
---
The nights were still the worst, their loud silence filling Owen’s head with the thoughts that threated to crack him open and turn him inside out. Sometimes he wondered how his mind could contain them all without exploding. And then he wondered if it was ever going to go away, this feeling that he was surviving instead of living.
Owen pulled a bottle of beer out of the fridge and flicked the cap off, his eyes trained on the window and the darkness outside, at his own reflection that looked nothing like anyone he could recognize.
None of this was supposed to be happening.
He was supposed to still be on active duty for another fourteen months, not stuck in a place he fought so hard to get away from – not because it was bad, but because the rest of the world always seemed so big to him it felt like a shame not to be trying to see it all. His daughter was not supposed to have gone for three months without talking, scaring the living hell out of him and a few therapists. There was a moment when Owen was convinced he’d never hear her voice again until he heard her singing her toys to sleep one night, a full month before she spoke to him again. She was not supposed to be crying because she missed her mother while he felt helpless and useless, a joke of a father.
His wife wasn’t supposed to be dead, period.
Harper loved him. He knew she did. Ever since she was old enough to recognize him, she would crawl, and then waddle, and then run to the door whenever he’d come back home from another tour. She would climb into his arms. She would fall asleep on his chest with her chubby fist closed over his shirt in the middle of telling him a story. She would rush to him to get away from the injustices her ‘evil’ mother would push on her – like brushing her teeth or picking up her toys, and his heart would swell in his chest every time with more love he ever thought he was capable of feeling.
But that was easy. That he knew how to do. The wrath of Harper Marie Lynn Grady over the wrong brand of cereal or her refusal to leave the house unless she was wearing the right skirt was something else entirely.
The one thing that no one mentioned to him before he got sucked into this big black hole was that parenting was considered a team sport for a reason. Before, it felt almost effortless. Like he and Jenny could make no mistake. Sure, there were some bumps in the road; they had their issues, no one was perfect – and so on, and so forth. Owen tended to be a good cop to Jenny’s bad one, sneaking an extra cookie to his kid and closing his eyes on her small mischiefs. Granted, it would’ve been hard to be anything else, what with him being gone a good half of a year, but he’d always found consolation in knowing that there would be time for everything else, that he’d have the rest of his life to catch up.
Man, was he wrong about that!
Now, he felt like he was trying to swim in the middle of the ocean with one arm locked behind his back. He knew how to diffuse a bomb and use just about any kind of firearms there was, but hell if he had any idea how to make his own child eat her vegetables, or how to braid her hair, or how to be both parents at the same time. He probably felt just as trapped as Harper who had no one else to turn to whenever Owen hit a brick wall.
They were both tired, and he couldn’t help but wonder sometimes if he was even cut out for this, for this whole parenting thing that he clearly wasn’t excelling at. And if he wasn’t – what was he supposed to do?
And then there was Claire Dearing.
It wasn’t anything personal. He knew little about her and, frankly, didn’t care much about the rest, but there was something almost meditative about her effortless routines that tended to soothe the storms raging in his mind. The way she was flying, weightless, barely touching the pale, cold surface beneath the sharp blades of her ice-skates…
Maybe he also needed help, Owen thought with dismay. Maybe he was losing it. Maybe this was the long overdue PTSD everyone at the meetings was talking about and that he foolishly believed he managed to avoid. His mother had suggested a few times that he maybe he should talk to someone, get another opinion, a different perspective. Nothing permanent, she stressed. Just something to help him get through the worst of it.
At the time, her offer seemed almost laughable – the worst of it? As opposed to what?
But what if she wasn’t that far off?
“Daddy?”
Startled, he turned around to find Harper standing in the doorway, her hands clasped around the toy bunny he’d gotten for her when she was born. Blinking in the bright light, she was rubbing her eyes, her dark curls falling down her pajama-clad shoulders.
“Hey, baby, what are you doing up so late?”
He put the bottle down and crouched in front of her.
“Bad dream.” Harper reached for him, wrapping her arms around his neck, the toy trapped between them.
“It’s just a dream.” Owen gathered her in his arms and kissed her hair, shocked once again by how big she was getting. Not by his stands maybe, but he still remembered the days when she could fit in the cupped palms of his hands, so tiny he was scared to break her. And then in just a blink of an eye they were suddenly here, and now he had no idea how it happened. “It’s not real. C’mon, let’s get you back to bed. You want me to read you something?”
She rested her head on his shoulder, her eyes already drooping sleepily. “Tell me a story.”
“About what?”
“Dragons.”
Owen nudged the door to her room open with his shoulder, careful not to trip on the toys scattered all over the floor and lowered her down, already asleep.
He pulled her blanket over her and tucked her in, wondering not without a twinge of terror in his stomach just how much of his daughter’s life and his own he was not seeing because he didn’t know where to look.
---
A couple of weeks later, Claire found Harper sitting on the bleachers after everyone else had already left, a book in her lap and a tip of a pencil in her mouth, her forehead creased in concentration.
“Hey, honey,” Claire stopped in front of the girl who looked up instantly. “Where’s your dad?”
Harper’s eyes darted toward the door. “Probably running later,” she answered, looking somewhat uncertain, although not particularly troubled. “He’s coming any moment now.”
“It’s okay,” Claire assured her, then folded her arms in front of her on the barrier between them. “What are you doing?”
“Homework,” Harper muttered, her face puckering with displeasure. And then she snapped her head up, her features lighting up momentarily. “Can you do the spin things for me?” She asked with the barely contained excitement she no longer tried to hold back.
Where was the gloomy little thing Owen first brought here back in January? It was quite incredible to watch her shed the layers of caution and distrust and step out of her shell, revealing a real gem of a truly delightful person underneath.
There was so much life inside her, so much hunger and excitement for everything the world could offer.
Claire laughed and pushed the gate open, stepping off the ice. “I have a better idea.” She lowered down into the chair next to Harper. “Let’s finish your homework and then I’ll teach you how to do them. What do you say?”
When Owen burst through the doors half an hour later, Harper’s homework was done and was sitting in her backpack, and she was doing small, awkward twirls in the middle of the rink, right in the center of a pale spotlight, her hand clasped tightly around Claire’s and her laughter scattering around the cool room and echoing under the ceiling.
He stopped short, panting and relieved beyond measure, and so did they, turning to him at the same time, hands clasped together.
“Daddy!” Harper let go of Claire and moved toward him, breathless and grinning from ear to ear. “Have you seen my spins?”
“Sure did!” He ruffled her hair fondly, earning a stink eye from the girl for doing that. “I’m so sorry,” he said to Claire when she joined them. “I got caught up in—I’m sorry, it won’t happen again, I swear.”
“Don’t be, it’s fine,” Claire promised him quickly. “We had fun.” She ran her hand over Harper’s head absently, smiling down at her. “Didn’t we?”
“Come on, champ, go get your boots,” Owen told his daughter, then sunk heavily against the barrier and ran his hand through his hair that was already sticking out in every direction from his trot from the parking lot and down a long corridor. “Thank you,” he mouthed to Claire, a smile coming through his voice.
“We did the homework, too,” she informed him conspiratorially.
He scoffed. “I hope she did at least some of it.”
By the time they were ready to leave, Claire had also gathered her things and was head for the exit, her hair pulled into a sloppy ponytail. Owen pushed the door open for her after she turned off the lights and scooped Harper in his arms while she locked up, shifting her bag from her left shoulder to the right and pocketing her keys.
She followed them to the exit and out into the cold night, the soles of her practical shoes lined with fur squeaking on the linoleum. Having to actually get used to walking after several hours on the ice never ceased to amaze Claire, the sensation almost as alien as having to move on all fours or upside down, making gliding feel more natural than anything else.
“Hey, you need a ride or anything?” Owen turned to Claire once they reached the parking lot and he stopped near his jeep.
“Thank you, Mr. Grady, but I’ve got a ride right here,” she nodded toward a silver Toyota parked two cars down from his and stuffed her hands deeper into the pockets of her overcoat, searching for the quickly dissipating warmth.
Harper giggled, wiggling in his arms to turn to Claire. “Why did you call daddy ‘Mr. Grady’?”
“It’s his name,” Claire looked up at her.
“Yes, but only for the work people, not friends,” the girl informed her with the air of utmost authority.
“Is that what we are, huh?” She asked Owen, her head tilted to her shoulder.
“You tell me, Ms. Dearing,” he told her, straightening up and holding her gaze for a second or two longer than necessary, and suddenly she was not amused anymore, her smile slipping off. “Well,” he coughed when the moment started to stretch, pulling his head a bit into his neck against the sharp gusts of wind. “Thanks, again, for watching Harper tonight. I really appreciate it.”
“It was no trouble at all,” she promised him and started toward her car, but then stopped and turned to him again just as he opened the door and positioned his daughter in her seat in the back. “Owen?”
“Yeah?” He straightened up.
Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it…
“It usually takes me about an hour to clean up a bit and, I don’t know, collect the forgotten gloves, finish some paperwork. Stuff like that.” She chewed on her lip for a few seconds, watching his expression in the dim light of streetlamps running along the perimeter of this small parking lot, his face streaked with shadows and almost completely unreadable. “If you need to be late again, for whatever reason, don’t worry about it. I’ll make sure that everything is okay with Harper.”
He stared at her for a long moment without saying a word, then tapped his fingers on the roof of his car and nodded slowly. “Thanks, I… I’ll try not to make a habit out of it,” he said in that weird voice that felt like a touch of velvet to her skin. “And, Claire?” A pause. “You’re something else. You know that, right?”
“So I’ve heard,” she brushed him off nonchalantly, more for her own benefit than his.
---
It started with a snowstorm that swept in fast and furious one day in late February. All week, the meteorologists swore their heads off, promising that it would move up north, heading toward Canada, barely even grazing Wisconsin. Instead, it seemingly decided to bury the whole state in one giant snowbank until it was tucked safely under a thick, white blanket.
By the time the weather channels finally issued an alert, warning everyone to stay at home or, at the very least, avoid driving, the world had turned into white chaos. Angry wind was throwing handfuls of snow at the windshield of Owen’s car, the wipers working at the top speed to no avail. He leaned over the steering wheel as if it could help him see better, but in the sea of head- and taillights, he was nothing but a dot on a map. Another car stuck in the middle of a massive traffic jam caused by multiple accidents somewhere ahead of him.
He turned on the radio, trying to find the updates, hoping to maybe make it to the next intersection and turn onto a side street and away from this mayhem, but words of the newscaster were fading in and out, the reception spotty and interrupted by the weather, and after a while he had no choice but to turn it off and hope for the best.
He tapped his fingers restlessly on the steering wheel, peering ahead at the swirls of white outside his car. He was late. He was late to pick up Harper, and it was probably only a matter of time before he hopped out of the goddamned car to go get her on foot. The only problem with that plan was that he didn’t think he’d cover one block before ending up buried in the snow. And that was not going to get his daughter home.
His eyebrows pulled together when the car in front of him eased forward, and he all but breathed a sigh of relief only to hit the brakes again not even ten feet later, causing the vehicle behind him to let out a honk of protest. “Right there with ya, buddy,” Owen muttered, glancing into the rearview mirror.
Sick with worry, he checked his watch
And that was when his phone began to ring.
---
The power went out just as Claire finished the class, and in the sudden darkness and silence, she could hear the wind howling in the vents, the tree branches scraping against the roof and the walls of the building. A short panic ensued among the kids and parents alike, and a few tears were shed before the situation got under control and Claire managed to see everybody out in the light of the cellphone flashlights.
Everybody except one.
Owen still wasn’t there, and the building manager was asking everyone to vacate the premises as it was dictated by the safety protocol. Power surges apparently rose the risk of fire – which Claire didn’t want to think of – and therefore extreme weather conditions required immediate evacuation, leaving her with a frightened Harper Grady on her hands.
There was nothing she could do but call Owen – he insisted she had his phone number after the last time he was late picking his daughter up – and tell him to come get Harper from Claire’s place, an old house a few blocks away from the Community Center. It used to belong to her parents and where she’d been living since they passed away five years ago, reluctant to sell it despite the fact that it was too big for just one person and required constant maintenance. Karen kept pestering her about it, pointing out that it was criminally impractical. But Claire liked it, she liked the vibe of it, and the memories its walls held, and all the small things in-between.
And at the moment, it was either taking Harper there, or waiting for him outside in her car, and quite frankly, that sounded downright dreadful. It was cold, the girl was probably tired, and if it was up to Claire, the decision would be a no brainer. But Owen was her father, and his had to be the final word.
“Owen?” There was a long pause on the line when Claire voiced her suggestion, interrupted by the static and honking on his end, and what she thought was a wail of an ambulance siren, and she could almost hear him think, weighing the pros and cons of her offer.
“Yeah, okay.” He cleared his throat. And then he asked her to text him the address.
When he appeared on Claire’s doorstep almost an hour later, smelling not unpleasantly of motor oil, his jacket unzipped and his hair dusted with the snow, Harper was happily snacking on chocolate chip cookies and humming some tune under her breath while she was drawing something that could be both a whale and a rabbit at the kitchen table. She threw herself at her father with a squeal, climbing into his arms and telling him about how Claire had ‘all the books’ and a real ‘grown-up drawing table’, referring to her stand-up drafting desk tucked in the corner of the living room where she worked now and then if she fell behind on her projects.
“Does she, really?” Owen asked, his eyes darting between his daughter and Claire who looked… homey in her leggings and oversized University of Wisconsin sweatshirt. “Why don’t you get your things, honey, and we’ll get going?” He set Harper down and turned to Claire. “Look, I’m so sorry…”
“Don’t,” she stopped him, raising her hand. “It wasn’t your fault, and we were both kind of tired, so I did have some ulterior motives for bringing her here.” And then, “Although kidnapping wasn’t one of them.”
Owen chuckled, rubbing his forehead. “Yeah, I sorta figured that out. It’s just, um…” He shook his head, grimacing a little. “This never happened before. Not like that, and I thought she’d be mad because there was this one time I had to pick her up late from her Grandma’s and she wouldn’t talk to me until the next day, but… I kinda didn’t expect the storm to get this bad so fast.” He let out a long breath. “That doesn’t sound good, does it?”
Claire pushed her hair back from her face, her gaze softening. “Sounds okay,” she told him. They both glanced into the living-room where the girl was carefully putting her books and papers and a Winnie-the-Pooh pencil bag into her backpack. “I get it. It’s just the two of you, and it not easy. And I was glad to help.”
Owen’s features relaxed and he nodded, watching her closely as she watched his daughter, for some reason only now noticing a dusting of golden freckles sprinkled over Claire’s nose – the same shade as paler wisps of hair at her temples. And the vanilla scent—Owen first thought was that it was from a pie or something, but now he would bet his very soul on it coming from her skin, washing over him each time she moved, and his stomach clenched at the that thought in response to something he hadn’t felt in so long he didn’t think he still could.
Back a few months ago, when he first saw her at the Community Center, Claire was more of an oddity than a person, someone so different from everyone Owen had ever known he couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that she was even real. Then she started working with Harper and once again, she was there but also not really, a fleeting presence he never bothered to actually register, too engrossed in his own life to pay proper attention to anything outside of it.
In a way, it was easy to convince himself he wasn’t really seeing her, if only because he wasn’t quite willing to admit even to himself that she wasn’t entirely unattractive. (Screw that, she was drop-dead gorgeous with that mane of copper-red hair that seemingly hated to be pulled into buns and braids, always struggling to break free, and the lively deep-green eyes – he was grieving, not blind.) And the realization stirred something inside him. Something he was not supposed or allowed to feel for a woman who was not his wife.
“The thing is, it’s like no matter how much time has passed, this whole single parent thing still feels like walking blindfold on a mine field,” he said in a whoosh of breath, if only to say something, do anything that wasn’t staring at Claire. “Half the time, I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“You’re doing well,” she assure him. “Trust me. Granted, I can’t speak from personal experience, but if everyone tried half as hard as you do, this world would be a better place.”
He laughed shakily at that. “Wow, that was profound.”
She shrugged, not at all perplexed by his reaction. “Yeah, well… I have multitudes.” And then added, “I also have a suggestion.” A pause. “I can watch Harper after her lessons if you need to work late.”
“Okay,” Owen drawled slowly, eyeing her with suspicion. “That sounds too good to be true. What’s the catch?”
Claire wrinkled her nose. “My car is all yours the next time it breaks down on me.”
He considered her words, still not convinced she was not joking. “Seriously, what’s the catch?” She cocked an eyebrow at him, and his expression turned grave. “Are you seriously offering to babysit my daughter?”
“I’m offering you a chance not to have to pull her out of the program even if it clashes with your work schedule,” she countered. That, and I’m probably losing my mind, she added in her head.
“I can’t ask that of you, Claire.”
“You’re not, it was my idea. You don’t have to say yes.” She watched a battle of emotions sweep across his face, and then it got impossible to hold his gaze, so she tore hers away, choosing to study the old wallpaper she kept promising herself to change every spring but never got around to doing it because what was that saying about cobbler’s children having no shoes? “It doesn’t make much difference to me, so unless you have other options…”
Crap, Owen thought. This was too much, wasn’t it?
The problem was, he didn’t have other options. Not really. His mother was not driving anymore – her eyesight had dropped significantly in the past couple of years and even though she remained fully functional otherwise, she decided to stop using her car for the sake of her own and everyone else’s safety. Mrs. Carmichael wasn’t driving, period. None of them would walk three miles in frigid weather to pick up Harper after her practice and take her home if he was late.
The girl had a few babysitters after Jenny had passed away but it never quite worked out for anyone – she wasn’t comfortable around strangers, drawing deeper into herself when forced to interact with them against her will, and Owen could tell it was causing her harm rather than helping either of them. And he simply couldn’t afford to let them both slip back into the time when she remained silent and withdrawn for so long he feared it would become permanent.
Claire was right. His only other choice would be to pull her out of ice-skating completely and simply have her stay with Mrs. Carmichael after school, but something told him that this would probably be the worst possible scenario. For some reason – well, for about a thousand of them, from where he was standing – Harper loved Claire Dearing, and Owen loved the way she was around his kid. Attentive but never patronizing, and comfortable too, without the extra layer of pity he’d noticed about some of Harper’s school teachers who were nearly tearing up at the sight of a poor motherless girl, setting his teeth on edge.
He didn’t have to say yes, that was true. But he hardly could say no, either.
Finally, when the girl hauled her backpack and a handful of other stuff into the hallway, Owen reached for her coat and crouched down in front of his daughter to help her put it on.
“Honey, what do you think about staying with Claire here after your lessons sometimes?” He asked her, considering that it had to be her decision in the end as his fingers worked rather clumsily on a small zipper of her puffed parka. “You know, like today?”
Harper’s mouth dropped open, her gaze shifted to Claire first and then back to Owen. “Every time?” She asked, incredulous.
“No, not every time,” Owen responded quickly, and Claire had to cover her snort with a cough. “Not at all. Just… some days when I have to pick up extra work. What’s you say?”
The girl glanced at Claire again, chewing on her lip. (Like Claire did when she was thinking hard about something. Sweet Jesus, his daughter was already picking up her habits.) Then she lifted her arms to have Owen pick her up and looked seriously into his face when he complied, her eyebrows knitted together. “Can it be every time?”
He grinned, and so it was set.
---
The first time Owen saw not his wife’s chocolate brown eyes in his dream, but Claire’s green ones, he woke up with a start, tangled in sweat-soaked sheets, his heart beating out of his chest. The dream was nothing but a smudge in his mind, the details of it erased from his memory the second he opened his eyes, but his stomach was in knots.
He didn’t know where it came from, or what he was supposed to do about it, but it left him nauseous and disoriented, and worst of all, unable to summon up the image of Jenny without looking at her picture. Every time he closed his eyes, he’d see Claire’s smile.
To be continued....
#clawen#clawen fic#claire dearing#owen grady#jurassic world#i'll try to post something every other week or so#but no promises#i'm kind of rewriting it again#honestly tumblr!
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