Schlatt's face was furious. "WHY DID YOU LET HER GO?!" silence."OLIVER, WHY DID YOU LET HER GO?!" Schlatt asked again. Silence, schlatt scoffed. "why'd i expect anything different...Get back to your room" Oliver nodded and started heading out. 

He got lucky this time. 

No bearings involved.

elsewhere

Claire ran off into the woods, the feeling that someone was watching her never fading away. silently hoping she might find Tommy and Wil. When she finally stoped to take a breath, they heard a noise. 

"Who's there?" they got their sword out.

 "Wil, calm down, it's just another woman." Tommy laughed, "what do you need from us woman. Also, be careful, we used to have safety rails but Wilbur removed them"

"Tommy?" she asked. Maybe they didn't recognise her. Yeah, in these few months her appearance did change a lot.

"wait- CLAIRE!" Tommy shouted. "it's so good to see you!"

"ha! Same here buddy! Hello to you too Wil" Wilbur just gave her a wide smile, not saying anything.

"I missed you both so much! I need to fill you up on stuff" Claire says, walking down the stairs.

"Sure, what's up?"

"you won't believe this" her eyes either beamed with either excitement or terror...wilbur didn't know for sure.

"If you won't tell us we won't" Wilbur chuckled

"I almost lost a life because of Schlatt and this weird soldier child." Tommy's heart practically stopped, his eyes widening.

"...wait what?" Wilbur woke up from his thoughts concerned. "Soldier child? Like a super soldier?"

Claire shrugged. "I don't even know my man! The adopted child of that bitch was trained like a soldier or something his whole life and tried to kill me! But... He stopped.." Claire said, gesticulating with her hands.

Tommy was concerned too. "Did Schlatt manipulate a kid to do what he wants like a dog...?" This scared him. He knew Schlatt was cruel...but breaking a person like this seems to be something in a whole other level

Claire sighed, placing a hand on Tommy's shoulder. "I hope not, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did this. The child was utterly traumatised from the looks of it. Schlatt and his drunk self seems to be more and more cruel to the poor kid, who's name I figured out is probably Oliver or something like that. And really all I did was patch his wounds and instead got myself some" she said, showing Tommy her scar from running and falling. 

"We have to help him" Wilbur asking, humming slightly, "is there any other information that could be useful?"

"hm.. He does everything he's told, but seemed to hesitate when he was going to slash my head off or something. Whenever I talked to him, he didn't talk back like at all, just whimpered and looked carefully a bit scared. " Claire answered, raking her brain to get all the information she could ever possibly need.

Wilbur thought for a moment, before asking. "was he controlled by something?" his tone was flat and dead serious.

Claire looked at the wall. "Well, first off he blew in this whistle that made no noise and Oliver came like a frickin' beast to me. No joke, he had claws 'n shit. And then Schlatt used a laser, (A FRICKIN' LASER, like what is he, a cat?)" she added as a side note,"to make me his 'target' if you get what I mean" Claire sighed. "the poor catboy." she chuckled a bit at the end.

"Oh god...schlatt is a fucking monster..." Wilbur whispered under his breath, but smiled on the inside Manburg won't stand for much longer...just need a bit of convincing... his mind was racing with different scenarios playing out in his head. He needed to find an ally...he can't just rely on himself and Dream, someone's bound to tell.

Claire looked over at Wilbur. She knew him well enough to know the almost not visible smirk he had on his place. He was planning something. "Hey Tommy, can you excuse us for a second?" Claire didn't even wait for an answer, grabbing Wilbur's hand and going somewhere else. "what. Are. You. Thinking?" 

"How to save the kid." Wilbur said flatly. He wasn't necessarily lying, but it wasn't close to being the full answer. He kept his straight face, not showing any emotions on it.

Claire raised her eyebrow. She knew it wasn't a full answer, but she wasn't going to bother. "Tommy wrote to me once and said you were going a teeny, weeny bit mad. Is that true?" she asked, changing the topic and starting to slowly walk back. 

Wilbur tensed at the words a little, before smiling wide. "And? I'm right! ." He laughed. "Manburg will just burn to the fucking ground, and we'll be done with it!" he threw up his hands in the air, making a sound of an explosion.

Wilbur smirked, realising that she didn't have anything to counter fit him with...

Claire sighed. Wilbur was her best friend. Yes, he was 3 years older, but they did grow up together. "Just know that, no matter what, I'll be on your side," Claire paused and thought 'even if it's not the right thing' and then continued: "Wilby" she smirked. 

"Did you just fuckin call me Wilby dude?" Wilbur laughed at her, his serious and psychopathic expression fading away slightly.

Claire had a playful smirk on. "Yes I did" she paused again. "WiLbY"

"Stop" he laughed, face palming and clearly embarrassed.

"No," she paused (again) "Wilby foot" and laughed hysterically. Wilbur pulled a face of disgust, before bursting out into laughter as he heard tommy voice asking them what was going on.

"Now that's juts weird" Tommy looked disgusted at the two adults, who were both crying-laughing.

Claire wiped her tears, chuckling. "Shut-up you.. you child" she said between wheezes. 

"HEY!" Tommy shouted. "I am no child! I am an alpha male and a gigachad! Anything lower than that is insulting!"

Wilbur stopped laughing, setting down on a bored expression and looking at tommy, before calmly saying "you are everything but an alpha male or a gigachad."

Little did they know, they were being watched. Oliver sat up in a tree, far from a person's view. The leaves made a perfect hiding spot for himself, covering most of his face and body. He watched with the curiosity of a child. He watched them, not understanding what was happening despite watching for a long time. 

He likes watching people; always found it fascinating. It helps him make a profile for every person and learn more things. For example; he knew when Wilbur was lying or that Tommy was having troubles sleeping, or how Wilbur's mind was tormenting him more and more. He probably knew pretty much everyone's secrete and can pin-point any person just by hearing them breathe.

Claire flinched at a little noise; not even Wilbur or Tommy heard it, and stared into the direction, not laughing not moving anymore. Her sheep-ears twitched at the yet another sound, perking up and her gaze was fixated on a dot. her hearing was a lot more sensitive for most of the time; sometimes came in handy, other times...not so much.

Oliver held his breath, not moving at all. If he learned anything over the past years, it is how to stay silent when someone is looking at you. The laughter stopped and the silence was weighing down on everybody  "You ok, Claire?" Wilbur asked, concerned.

Claire snapped out of her gaze. "Yeah, yeah I'm fine". She said, still looking a bit at the place. "just thought I saw Rudolph or something" she smiled, hiding her worries of being possibly stalked, or even worse. Wilbur chuckled at her joke, nudged her slightly on the shoulder and smiling. Tommy eyed them suspiciously, before making an excuse for them to go back into the cave.

~time skip another hour~ 

"You should be heading back." Wilbur said on a serious note. "It's getting late and if Schlatt suspects something then it's over for all of us"

Claire nodded. "I don't like being sappy, emotional and stuff, but I'll miss you guys" Claire said, opening her arms as a sign for the boys to hug her, only to be crushed by the two. No surprise, she was at least 3 heads shorter than the two.

"We'll miss you too" Tommy said, smiling

"I'll tell tubbo you guys are still breathing" Claire said, then started running back home. 

~a few days later~

the feeling of being watched never went away. It was like a pair of eyes always following her, watching her every move, hearing her every thought, stealing her own breath away from her. Oliver never thought he did something bad, that's just how he always lived. No one ever told him that it was bad, so he just did what he did best and hid. 

Over the past few days, Oliver found out more about Claire than she probably knew herself. her eating habits, sleep schedule, walking patters, breathing...everything. every small detail about her...he was partially doing this to avoid schlatt, but also to find out if she's a threat or not...

technically speaking, she is. She is a traitor and committed treason against Manburg. Schlatt says that people like that should be punished. However, she's not really a bad person, is she? she's just a bit different from the others...just kind-hearted like Niki and a person of her word. She doesn't mean any harm to anyone really...so does that count as being a bad person?

 Claire walked down the path, ignoring the steps behind her, to the point she got too annoyed. "Hey" She said, stopping and starting to face the steps, but no one was there. "tryna be sneaky?"  

Oliver stayed silent, like he always did. It was just a fun little game, a sort of training session where he wouldn't get beaten up if he did a mistake. Like a small relax after all the fighting. 

Claire's breathing started getting uneasy. "just stop hiding" she said, her voice almost breaking. She was freaking out, snapping finally from the feeling of being watched. 

Am I going mad? 

This was weird...Oliver was used to seeing his 'targets' crying but this one really turns something in him. He decided to come out, putting all his weapons away to show that he's harmless. He didn't know what he was doing, he just didn't want to see her in pain anymore...he just wanted her to be ok. 

"holy shit" Claire spoke. "you really are a stalker, ain't ya?" she said, her British accent really showing. Oliver just simply looked at her.  He knew she wouldn't do anything bad to him, but for some reason he was still scared. He kept his distance from her, ready to draw his weapons.

'Trust nobody.' he reminded himself

Claire looked at his face. " oh I'm sorry buddy, I don't want to scare you" she said softly. "I'm jot like others. I can't even hurt a bug." she smiled sadly, knowing about Wilbur having insane plans.

Oliver wanted to say something, but he couldn't. He physically can't. So, he took the next best option and took a stick and tried to write something on the ground. He didn't know how to, he was just basing it all off from the letters he saw and how people said them. Eventually, he drew "I now. This is y u name is Bug" in his wacky handwriting. 

Claire read in shock. "how do you-" her nickname was something only Wilbur and Phil used to call her during the ages of 12 to about 17, occasionally being called that at family reunions.

Oliver stared at her, before just trying to write something in the ground again. "I now many thing."

Claire looked at him. "do you know sign language? The American one at least?" 

"Sr nevr tut me." He wrote on the ground, trying his best to actually remember all the waky symbols he saw in books that Schlatt once read to him. Well, more like bashed it on his head and read some lines from there, but the point still stands.

"ah man, would've been easier to communicate with you. Want me to teach you some sign language words, mate?" Claire said, smiling.

His eye's started to beam with happiness, looking as though he just won a lottery. His small, kind smile showed itself on his scarred face and his eyes glistened in the sun and he nodded eagerly.

Claire squealed like a happy kid. "whats the first word you wanna learn?" she said sitting down on a bench. 

 Oliver shrugged, honestly overwhelmed by the whole situation after the shock and joy warn off a bit.

Claire got her hand up. "let's say Oliver." for the o, Claire made a circle with her hand. For the L, it was her first two fingers in the shape of an L. I was her hand clenched, only the pinky out. V was like a peace sign, e was her hand in the shape of a punch positioned hand and r was the sign you make when promising something. "try it"

Oliver tired his best in copying it. Honestly, it was a bit wonky, but he was doing decently-good for the first try. He tried smiling at her, but it just looked like he was even more confused than ever.

"Great job! If I was Schlatt, I would've been real proud to have you as my son" Claire said smiling, fighting the urge to ruffle Oliver's hair, just like she does to Tubbo and Tommy. Her heart sunk at the thought of the boys. Claire and Tubbo haven't talked in so long, and Tommy was well, Exiled from Manburg.

He felt a certain warmth that he hasn't felt for so long...he felt...loved. He felt loved for the first time in forever. His smile only widened, becoming even more hopeful and child-like.

Without thinking properly, Oliver reached out his hand to his neck, revealing a rather nasty looking scar. It was obvious it wasn't healed properly or might not even be healed at all. But his neck look odd, as if something was misplaced there or mangled.  Oliver kept shoving his hand towards his neck, as if trying to show something. He kept stopping right before it hit the scar.

Claire looked shocked. "Holy shit.. Is that why you can't talk? He ripped your vocal cords?" Claire asked, putting a hand to her mouth, worried. 

Oliver averted his eyes, bringing his coller back up and nodding in shame.

"Hey, it's ok! In a few years you will learn sign language fully with my help and we can communicate like that!" Claire spoke softly. "my distant cousin from Utah was mute so we used to communicate like this." 

Oliver smiled at her, before freezing in place. His pupils slit and wings spread on his back. His arms turned to claws and feet became more bird-like. His years had feathers on them. He quickly sped into the air and started to fly away. 

however, before he was out of sight, he turned back to ace Claire again.

'O-L-I-V-E-R' he signed to her, smiling and looked back at Claire, who just smiled at him, the warm raise of the sun melted perfectly on her softly-tanned skin. He nodded and flew away. He was happy that faith lead him to her.

'I'm proud of you' Claire signed at oliver's silhouette which was moving rapidly away from her.

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