[3rd POV]
After a while, the argument between Claire and Luke had slowly grown to a crawl, as silence began to fill the house, while the two had sat upstairs awkwardly, wondering when it would end. They had both hoped to be able to head back down stairs.
For Haley, it was because she was thirsty and wanted a snack. She also wanted to put away some of her stuff down there that she could not just put in her room. That and she wanted to talk to her mom some more about their time in Seattle.
While Billie wanted to head back down stairs so that she could officially talk to Claire about the Paris trip, and what it would entail.
She was just thankful that Haley had agreed that they shouldn't talk about the moving in thing until after she had turned eighteen. Probably one of the smartest decisions that they could make in this case.
But eventually, they heard the sound of Claire's voice echo from downstairs.
"You can come back down now! Luke and I are done arguing!" Claire's voice echoed, as the two glanced at one another, hoping that she was not lying to them, as they got to their feet and began to head downstairs.
They both had wondered how the argument had gone. As quite frankly, both of them had agreed with what Luke had done. The brat had deserved a harsher beating since he obviously was not the best person in the world if he was picking on a child with autism.
A truly monstrous thing you could do. Billie was somewhat curious about this could and who he could be. She wondered if perhaps the acting out was a product of something going on at home, like it tended to be in a LOT of cases with neglectful parents. She wouldn't be totally surprised considering it sounded like the boys parents were rich, which usually meant that they were constantly busy with work running their businesses.
This would then translate to him bullying others to get attention from his parents, even if the bullying was wrong and cruel at times.
Billie doubted she'd ever truly find out unless something came out on its own about the parents and what they had been doing over the years, and how they had been treating him on top of that. But she didn't truly care enough to go out of her way to learn about that sort of thing.
Walking downstairs, Billie and Haley were met with the very tense looking sight of Luke and Claire. The two of them seemed to be ignoring each other in favor of Billie and Haley, not looking anywhere near each other. Probably because of the argument that they had just had that lasted for a lot longer than Billie and Haley had either been expecting.
"Are you two okay? You have been arguing for like...forever" Haley asked awkwardly, glancing between the two. She was not entirely sure why, but she had a feeling that the argument had not just been about the fight at school, and had likely exploded into something a bit deeper and far more important than Luke defending an autistic child from a bully.
"Oh yeah we are just fine, isn't that right, Luke?" Claire said to her son, giving him a small pointed look, making him groan in annoyance in response.
"Yep, just fine. Totally fine. Not like we just had a long 20 minute argument over-" "Luke" Claire cut off Luke, giving him a sharp glare as he went silent with nothing more than a soft grumble leaving him.
Billie and Haley glanced at one another, both of them growing incredibly curious about what had happened between them.
"So...how was Seattle? What else did you do besides helping out the kids?" Claire asked, truly interested in finding out.
"It was great. Besides helping the kids and granting their wishes, we also went around shopping. We did a lot of shopping. Pike Place was a pretty cool little market, the mac n cheese there was incredible too. Best I've ever had" Billie responded with a small smile on her face, easily able to tell that this was Claire's attempt at deflecting to something else. As she obviously did not want to talk about whatever her and Luke had been arguing about for the last twenty minutes.
"Oh it's really as good as they say it is? I watched some vidoes on Pike Place after hearing about you going to Seattle, and the mac n cheese was like all anyone was talking about there" Claire responded, inwardly wishing she had been able to try some herself.
"Here, you can actually try some yourself. It might not be as good as the fresh stuff, but its gotta be a lot better than the normal frozen crap" Haley said, handing her mother a bag that had a few boxes of the frozen version of the mac n cheese inside. The frozen stuff was obviously not as good sadly.
"I didn't know they made frozen versions of it. Guess we'll have to try it for lunch tomorrow!" Claire replied with a small smile. She still wanted to try the real deal, but this was a good other option.
"Did you go to the Space Needle? Was it as big as it looks on TV?" Luke asked, not really caring that much about the mac n cheese.
"We did even better. We had dinner in it" Billie replied with a small grin, bringing out her phone as she turned it over to show them some pictures of their dinner date in the space needles restaurant.
"Wow! The food looks amazing! The view...not so much" Claire said somewhat uncomfortably as she looked at the photo, noticing that it was not only a glass floor, but the view really did show off just how high up they actually were.
"Trust me mom, it's a lot scarier in person" Haley said with a shiver, remembering how nervous she had been when they had first gone up the space needle. Billie had been uncomfortable with it too, but she had practically dragged her into the space needle, trying to help her get over her discomfort with the idea of having dinner up there.
"It looks awesome" Luke said, not sharing their discomfort with the heights.
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The three of them just chuckled at his words, and continued to talk about their trip in Seattle for a little while longer, before eventually, Billie had asked Claire to speak privately in another room. So now they were standing upstairs in Haley's room, which was currently empty.
"So what is this about?" Claire asked, curious.
"Well...you know how Haley's birthday is coming up next week?" Billie asked, as Claire raised an eyebrow and nodded.
"I was going to ask something, I have a gift set up for her, but it involves another trip outside of the country" Billie began. Claire frowned at this.
"Another trip? But you've just gotten back from Seattle"
"I know. But this one...this one is special. It's to the one place she wants to go to more than anywhere else in the entire world...Paris" Billie responded. Claire stilled at her words, staring at her with wide eyes, not expecting Paris to be the trip location of all places.
"And I understand that it is far away. That's pretty much across the world, but I have already gotten everything prepared. Security, a nice home, places to visit, everything. I have also made sure that her passport is up to snuff, and it is. I just...need your permission to bring her" Billie explained to the mother of the girl she loved.
Claire stared at her for a few more moments, before sighing.
"...You know I'd have denied it. But if I did, then Haley would never ever forgive me. And I love my daughter way too much to do that. So go ahead. Just...have her back before Christmas, okay? And we'll have to celebrate her birthday the day before here in the States" Claire replied.
Billie looked at her in surprise, but after hearing her explanation, she couldn't help but softly smile. She was going to be able to bring her girlfriend to Paris, and would be able to still have her enjoy her birthday in the states on top of that. Making it an even better experience, since they would also get back just before Christmas too.
Billie wasn't really sure what to say to Claire's acceptance of the trip, so she did the only thing that felt right.
She moved forward and hugged Claire. Claire flinched slightly in surprise, before a smile formed on her face.
Feeling the hug, Claire looked down at the girl, and said only one thing in response to the small thank you that left Billie, and that was...
"You're welcome kid...you're welcome"
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That's the end of the chapter!
Just a simple chapter of talking to Claire and talking about Seattle. There'll be some time skips and stuff coming up soon.
I'm writing this on a new keyboard that is a hell of a lot more sensitive, so if there are spelling mistakes, let me know.
Anyways, have a good day!