Clay and Quinn

C: Marry me, Quinn James!
Q: Yes…! Yes, of course, I will!

―Clay proposes to Quinn and she accepts.^[src]

Clay and Quinn, also known by their portmanteau Clinn, are a relationship on One Tree Hill, portrayed respectively by Robert Buckley and Shantel VanSanten.

Clay and Quinn meet for the first time at Jamie’s seventh birthday at Nathan and Haley’s home and then, while dealing with her marital issues, Quinn looks to Clay for support and the two soon start growing closer and both develop an attraction to each other. Despite this, Nathan asks Clay to stay away from Quinn due to all the problems she has in her life saying that she needs time to sort them out and Clay reluctantly agrees, telling Quinn they can’t hang out anymore. After having finally admitted their feelings to each other, Clay takes a step back from his relationship with Quinn because he doesn’t want to replace his deceased wife Sara (who tragically died some time prior) with her, but they eventually reconnect and start a real relationship when Clay finally begins moving on from his traumatic past. They also have to face the stalker Katie Ryan, who claims to be Sara as she is basically her double, and are both shot by her, risking their lives, but they’re able to make through it. In the last season, Clay also discovers that he’s had a son with Sara, Logan, whom he had forgotten due to the trauma of her death: after an initial rough time with Logan, who at first isn’t able to forgive his father for having abandoned him, the three of them eventually form a family. In the series finale, Clay and Quinn get married and adopt Logan as their son.

Relationship arc[]

Season 7[]

The newly-divorced Quinn James, Haley’s older sister, has come back to Tree Hill to spend some time with her family and get through her marriage failure. Clay Evans is instead the sport agent of Quinn’s brother-in-law, Nathan. The two slowly fall for and each other and then start a relationship after Quinn moved on from her divorce and Clay from the death of his wife, but they soon have to struggle with the stalker Katie Ryan (a woman who pretends to be Clay’s deceased wife as she is basically her double), who shoots them in the finale.

Season 8[]

At the beginning of this season, Clay and Quinn seem to live a beautiful day together on the beach, only to find out they actually are in a sort of limbo and that, in reality, their bodies are almost bloodless on the ground after being shot by Katie. The two are found by Haley and get rushed to the hospital, while they keep experiencing their extra-bodily experience between the beach and the hospital and after a tearful farewell, they are separated as Quinn awakens from coma while Clay doesn’t and is still trapped in the limbo. A week after Quinn’s awakening, Clay is still in a coma and imprisoned in the limbo, where he meets a man called Will with whom he discusses their situation. Nathan discovers that he needs a kidney transplant to survive and decides to offer even if this means giving up his career in the NBA. In the end, Clay wakes up and it is reported in the journal that a certain Will Bennett (the man Clay met in the limbo) died and that he had decided to donate his organs, saving Clay’s life. Quinn is resigned from the hospital and moves in momentarily with her sister Haley and soon after Clay is resigned too: along with his Quinn, he faces the trauma of returning to the beach house where Katie shot them. Quinn is too traumatized and obsessed with Katie’s presence and isn’t able to deal with it, so Clay, after realizing the situation, offers her to take a photographic service in Africa to focus on her passion and leave this whole situation behind for a while. Nathan then decides to become a sport agent and Clay’s partner after quitting basketball for good. After some time, Quinn gets tossed out of town to look for Dan to get his help in finding and killing Katie, but, when she returns home, she decides not to do so and try to move on. However, in the meantime Katie returns to Tree Hill after learning that Quinn and Clay are still alive: while an impressive hurricane is hitting the town, Katie assaults Quinn, who unfortunately is alone at home due to Clay being away for a business trip, but eventually gets shot herself and dies, being finally stopped forever. In “The Drinks We Drank Last Night”, the girls have a wild night for Brooke’s bachelorette party, during which Quinn begins to spend more time with Alex (who attempted suicide in the past) and the two share their past pre-death experiences. In the episode dedicated to Valentine's Day, sex games, secrets and laughs come into play for couples of Tree Hill, who celebrate the lovers' day, and Clay and Quinn share a lot of romantic moments, like a very special dinner and a hot shower together. Then, Clay and Quinn are with the rest of the gang at the hospital when Haley goes into labor and gives birth to her and Nathan’s second child, Lydia, and stay happily together until the end of the season.

Season 9[]

At the beginning of this season, Quinn notices a pretty strange behavior in Clay and comes to think he’s cheating on her or that he got involved with drugs, but then it is discovered he’s having sleepwalking problems: Quinn starts to be worried about him and tries to convince him to get help. After some reluctance, Clay goes to see how rehab works to a relieved Quinn and then decides to get hospitalized. While he is in the hospital for his rehabilitation, Clay manages to connect with another patient, a little guy named Logan. While being forced to revisit his traumatic past with Sara during therapy, Clay receives a life changing news: Logan is his and Sara’s son, whom he’s completely forgotten as a form of defense from the trauma of Sara’s death. After processing the shock for what he’s discovered, Clay tells an incredulous Quinn the whole story and decides to get to know Logan. After some time, Clay tells Logan about his past, revealing him he is his father: subsequently, Clay and Quinn try to reconnect with Logan as Clay would try to mend for the past and be his father for real. However, after all that happened, Logan is initially reluctant, but then Clay slowly succeeds in rekindling their relationship: when asked to move in with Clay and Quinn, Logan agrees to and finally accepts Clay as his father. In the penultimate episode, Clay, inspired by his newfound happiness and family, proposes to Quinn, who happily accepts and, in the series finale, the two get married and Quinn adopts Logan as her son while he calls her “mom” for the first time: now that are three are family, Clay and Logan have realized one of Quinn's greatest dreams. After the final time-jump, Clay, Quinn and Logan are seen with the Tree Hill gang in the high school gym watching a game of Jamie’s, who’s become the new Ravens’ all time scorer.

Memorable episodes[]

7x01 - Clay and Quinn first meet at Jamie's seventh birthday.
7x05 - Clay and Quinn begin to grow closer.
7x08 - Clay tells Quinn about his dramatic past with Sara.
7x09 - Clay and Quinn share their first kiss.
7x12 - Clay and Quinn officially begin their relationship.
7x22 - Clay and Quinn are shot by Katie and fall into a coma.
8x02 - Quinn wakes up from coma, but Clay doesn’t.
8x04 - Clay wakes up from coma too.
8x05 - Clay and Quinn come back home and have to face the trauma of being attacked.
8x06 - Quinn leaves to Africa for a photoshoot in order to recover from the last events.
8x10 - Katie comes back to Tree Hill after she learned that Clay and Quinn are still alive.
8x11 - Katie assaults Quinn at home while Clay is away, but Quinn is able to defeat her and finally Katie is arrested.
9x05 - Clay decides to get help for his sleepwalking problems and, at the clinic where he gets hospitalized, he meets Logan.
9x08 - Clay discovers Logan is his and Sara’s son and is shocked.
9x10 - Clay tells Quinn what he found out about his past and she tries to help him.
9x11 - Quinn meets Logan and she and Clay try to reconnect with him, who finally forgives Clay and accepts him as his father.
9x12- Quinn and Clay get engaged while Logan moves in with them.
9x13 - Clay and Quinn get married, adopting Logan as their son.