The Baby Project. C.H. (A.U.)

Thirty Nine // Homecoming.

"Oh my god!!" I squeal in pure excitement. I really was not expecting to see Claudia today. Last I heard she was still going around Europe, I mean she hadn't even replied to last email that I had sent her, The one that was basically asking for help with Luke. I wasn't even sure if she had received it yet. 

"What are you doing here?" I ask pulling her in for a hug. 

"Well I decided that Europe was getting boring." Claudia says giving me a smirk. 

"Uh huh." I raise my eyebrows at her in curiosity, I think we both knew that Europe could never get boring, especially not for someone like Claudia who loved an adventure. I was ninety nine percent sure that she was home for a complete different reason. 

"And maybe I've missed home." Claudia adds sheepishly. Well home definitely missed her to, it was so good to see her. 

"I'm so glad you're here!! And you look so good!" I compliment her. "Look how short you hair is!" 

"I know! I wanted a change and this was it." Claudia lightly laugh flipping her not short hair over her shoulder. I don't think I had seen Claudia with short hair since like high school. 

"It's a good change." I tell her honestly and she shoots me a smile. "You know it's actually perfect that you are here right now." 

"Why?" Claudia questions me, looking a tad confused. 

"Everyone is literally in the lounge right now." I tell her and her eyes go wide. 

"Seriously? Oh my god!" Claudia claps before basically pushing pass me to go to the lounge. 

"I'm back bitches!" I hear Claudia yell as I shut the front door and I have to let out a laugh, she had only been here a few minutes but it was so so good to have her back. It had been very odd for all of us to not have her here with us over the last couple of months. I respected her decision of needing to get away and go do some independent living for herself but it was weird when there was all of sorts of things happening with everyone and she wasn't here, in person at least. 

I can't help but feel warm at the sight of my second family all together again as I reach the lounge. It seemed like it had been forever since we had all been together and it gave me a sense of nostalgia.

We had all experienced so much together, we had been through bad and we had been through good but it didn't matter because we were all still together, even after all these years we were still friends and it meant the world to me because I really could't imagine my world without any of them. 

"You okay babe?" Calum asks looking concerned. I didn't even realize that he had walked over to me until he had spoken. 

"I'm....everything is great." I tell him and reach for one of his hands. Calum looks at me curiously but then he gives my hand a light squeeze before leading me to join our friends. 

<~>

"So we need details!" Emma starts once we had all finished hugging Claudia to death, not Luke though. All Claudia got from him was an awkward side hug. I guess it was better than nothing.

"Yes like why are you home when you could be in like Paris right now?!" Sam asks looking like she would burst if she didn't get an answer because I'm sure if Sam had the choice to be in Paris right now then she would be.

"And where is this new guy that we have heard so little about?" Aria asks next and my eyes travel to Luke to read his expression. I'm surprised to see he looks quite indifferent, almost just neutral. It was actually kind of odd because out of everyone I have ever known, Claudia was someone who could always get a reaction out of Luke. 

"And just why are you here?" Ashton chuckles. The smile on his face hadn't left since Claudia had walked in to the room which I thought was just adorable. I sometimes forgot just how close those two were, I mean they literally grew up together. 

"Oh and did you see any pizza guys on your way here?" Michael adds getting a laugh from everyone. Michael may of been happy to see Claudia but he was also very disappointed that it wasn't  the pizza that he had ordered. 

"Well for starters..." Claudia clears her throat. "I honestly just wanted to come home, I've missed this placed and I've missed you lot. There is only so much of Europe that you can look at and I guess I was just finished...at least for now." Claudia explains. One question down, A dozen more to go. "Elijah is the name of the guy that I have been seeing and he is from Spain. We aren't official but we aren't see any other people either."

I wish I could say I was surprised to hear that Claudia was in another complicated relationship but that was just her and I had learned to accept that. I guess I just didn't understand why she had to make things so complicated for herself. 

"So where is he? Still in Spain?" I ask her and a small smile spreads to her lips. 

"He is but he may come here to visit. We're just seeing how it goes." Claudia shrugs coyly. It seemed like she didn't really want to talk about him much which was strange because usually when there was a guy in her life she wouldn't shut up about him. 

"What does that even mean?" Luke blurts taking everyone by surprise. 

"Luke." Calum warns and Luke shakes his head in response then turns his focus back to Claudia. "Seeing how it goes?" Luke spits. "Are you shitting me? Isn't that what you said we should do when I asked you to be my girlfriend? You didn't want to be official, Oh no you just wanted to see how things would go."

"Luke come on this is not the time." I say feeling incredibly bad for Claudia. This felt like a total ambush which was crazy considering ambushes were usually planned and Luke had no idea that Claudia was coming here tonight. 

"When will there be a good time Genie? She's been running around the world for the last couple of months!" Luke growls looking way too worked up. I didn't even know where any of this was coming from. I knew things weren't perfect between Luke and Claudia but I at least thought they were friendly with each other. 

I even thought that they had talked some things over when Luke had found out about the baby but obviously there was a lot that they still needed to talk about, and it seemed we would be getting a preview of that talk right now. 

"So Claudia how did things go for us? Should we talk about how you rejected me countless times and then tried to come running back once you figured it out how you actually felt, but by then you had already slept with my best friend so it really didn't matter." Luke yells and  my heart breaks for Claudia who looks like she's trying her absolute best to break down in front of everyone. 

"Luke enough!" Ashton commands but Luke completely ignores him. 

"Cal." I mumble and Calum gives me a worried look. He was clearly as uncomfortable as the rest of us and he didn't know to do. Neither of us did, but I felt like out of all of us it would be Calum who could get him to stop. 

"Or should we talk about the fact that you didn't miscarry at all." Luke says getting everyone's attention. "You killed my baby and didn't even tell me! It was my decision too!" Luke screams and that's when Calum moves from his position next to me and goes to grab Luke. 

"Tell them Claudia! Tell them what you did!" Luke screams as Calum forcefully drags him out of the room leaving the rest of us in complete silence. Except for Claudia who now currently choking back sobs. 

This was not how I saw this night going, not at all. 




A/N: O to 100 real quick :> Everything will be explained, don't you worry ;) And I just wanna let you know that I made an instagram, It is foreverattachedofficial so if you want exclusive content and updates on a rage of things then please follow! I will actually be making an announcement on there soon which won't be going on Wattpad for at least a few more months and you really don't wanna miss that! And I'll follow you back of course, I think this is going to be a really cool way to communicate with you all so please don't leave me hanging!! 

Also I know a lot of you still ship Ludia (Luke and Claudia) So I want to know why? Why do you want them together? Let me know! I haven't decided on their fate just yet so it will be a big help to me! And I know this chapter is a little short but I have the worst headache/earache ever and I really didn't know what else I wanted to add to this chapter because I wanted to leave you all with a small cliffhanger ;)