A/N: Claire and Kate's relationship is loaded enough to be ballistic. Here's a peek into Claire at the end.

P.S. I'm 100% pro-choice, don't let the language fool you!


THETIS

She knew from the start that his father would not rise to the occasion, knew it so deep she could only think of the shadow in her womb as a parasite. Not the baby, not her son, but the promise that she would be drained.

Claire's pregnancy had been a fever dream of imprisonment, but she knew her baby wasn't to blame, was in fact imprisoned alongside its mum, and so Claire found herself caring about the shadow, shining light where there had been none. She woke up from a fall from the heavens to realize how much she needed him.

By the time he was placed in her arms, Claire loved Aaron with a fierceness beyond reason or reckoning. In that moment it clicked; her son was hers, and no one could take him away.

"Come with me," Kate said, and Claire craved a bullet blown through her white teeth.

He was taken away. People didn't understand-there is no snooze button on fearing for your child. Her baby, her respite, her joy; he was god-knows-where, alone and frightened and without his mum. They didn't understand, thought she was crazy, and Claire pitied them, Good riddance, those simple people, bitter people. She forgave them, but did not forget.

"I've been raising him," Kate said, and smiled, actually smiled, huge and sweet, and Claire felt the wrath of Medea. Understood, for the first time, why the witch who sobbed over her children's fate still went on to carry it out.

She searched and searched and laid traps and killed Others and still did not find him. Three years spent trying to recover her son by the cost of blood and here Kate was, inviting her, allowing her to see her son, as if she hadn't stolen him in the first place. As if things were that fucking simple. There were wasps in Claire's head now, kills on her count, and she was supposed to let all that go because Kate asked her to.

Kate, who had delivered Aaron, who stroked Claire's hair and guarded her sleep, who had been a sister that Claire mourned.

Kate, who had left her here, who was going to leave again. Kate, who Aaron called Mommy.

"Please, Claire."

Claire had no desire to let her win. Still, what choice did she have? Forgive, do not forget. Forget, do not forgive.

Today, Claire would put her weapons aside.