His nearness was more of a comfort than she wanted to admit, even when she wasn't racked by months of soul-crippling panic. Right now, there wasn't much left in her to keep fighting up that stream. Lying to him on her way out the door had taken it all out of her.
Even so, his words of encouragement seemed to fall way too short of what her true fears were. Pregnancy, while terrifying in its own right and something she had zero experience with and only basic knowledge of, wasn't what fueled the nightmares that plagued her sleep and moments alone (of which there had been more than not since she fled to the outskirts). It was what came afterward. Not just bringing a child into their world, but their child?
Between their bloodlines and all the evil Fucks they'd pissed off along the way, the kid wouldn't have a chance. Not to mention it being the biggest raw and exploitable weakness Claire could possibly think of. But as the tears fell from her tangled lashes and her eyes stared blankly into her child's horrible future, she couldn't respond in any way save for the detached shake of her head. Then at his question, a scrape of air in the back of her throat. A scoff, but not really- the derision aimed solely at herself.
"It's yours-" she admitted in a sigh, defeated and feeling about as low as a damn cockroach. "I just... couldn't. With ...</i>everything.</i>" Broken sentences were all the sense she could make right now. Hopefully he understood her reasons. Hell, even if he didn't, she'd just be back where she planned to be in the first place- dealing with it by herself. But with Jo and his old fiance on top of everything else, there just wasn't any other option.