First And Forever (under reconstruction) (Wattys2018)

Chapter 38: Well This Is Just Great Clair's POV(edited)

After we leave Aust's house, we get back on the road. Liam keeps the car at full speed, sticking to abandoned dirt roads. We stay at full speed, reaching our destination within a day. We almost can't believe it's true as we drive up to the gate that's taller than both of us, the land around it thick with trees and greenery. "I...you sure this is right?" Liam shrugs, but when he punches in the gate code Aust gave him, the gate swings open with a protesting groan. Whoa....so this is ours now I guess...

We park the car in the secluded driveway, gazing in awe up at the mansion. It's huge. It's modeled almost like an old style castle, with thick grey bricks making up the outer walls and gate. The house rests on an acre of land, surrounded all the way around by a thick fence of cinder blocks. The windows vary in size and shapes, the left wall of what I presume is the living room completely made of glass. Liam and I gape at each other, walking into the mansion. It's dusty as hell, and smells strongly of rotting wood and mold. I look at Liam with a wrinkled nose, he looks at me with a similar expression. Well...let's get this over with.

3rd person POV

Liam and Clair split up, heading for different sides of the room. Clair is clad with a broom and dustpan, Liam with buckets of various glass cleaners and disinfectants along with several towels. Clair is sneezing frequently, determinedly sweeping dust and rodent pellets into a pile roughly her height. A sudden yelp demands her attention, snapping her eyes to Liam's side of the room.

She starts laughing hysterically, truly  laughing for the first time since her kidnapping. She laughs so hard her sides ache, so hard that she ends up falling down on her ass.

Liam looks completely and utterly hilarious!

While he'd been cleaning the various kinds and amounts of grime off the windows, he'd hit the stagnant curtains with his wide frame and released a cyclone of dust. Because of that, Liam is now covered head to toe in dust. Sneezing, he scowls playfully at Clair, simply ecstatic to hear her laugh again.

Clair isn't there within his line of sight however, she isn't anywhere to be seen in the room. Snapping his head around frantically, he scans the room desperately for her. He's filled with relief when she appears in front of him, giggling and holding a feather duster. She starts dusting Liam with the feather duster, laughing like an idiot the whole time. Liam smiles from his position, watching his Baby slowly return from the hell she'd been trapped in. As this thought crosses his mind, Liam is afraid it is too good to be true, lunging forward and catching Clair in his arms. Despite Clair's squeals about the dust, Liam clutches her tighter, afraid to let go. The two continue on like this for the remainder of the christmas break, spending everyday and most nights cleaning, cleaning, and more cleaning.

They tear out pounds of rotting wood, and use the thick woods surrounding the mansion to replace what they tore out. Since Clair is pregnant, Liam focuses more on the heavy-lifting while Clair focuses more on dusting the curtains, cleaning the furniture, revarnishing the new wood, scrubbing the stone floors, and washing all the beds. Using both their crafting skills and Clair's interior design skills to make the mansion livable once again, they make it as home like as possible. They welcome the otherwise unsettling and frustrating task, willing to do anything to keep their pasts' off their minds. And when the final day of vacation arrives, they spend the entire day assembling beds and unpacking everything they brought with them from Texas.

~Time Lapse Clair POV~

We walk up to the high school, hand in hand. People are staring at us, or more specifically at me. I mean, not only are we new, but I am very obviously knocked up in high school.

Liam and I are ignoring them to the best of our ability, but it's hard. Finally, we reach the front office. The lady doesn't look up, "Can I help you two?"