This is just a oneshot of Eclare that I was in the mood to write. It's my attempt at a dark fic, so give it a chance, let me know what you think, it'd mean a lot. I'm hoping it's a lot better than my other work, on my other account.

~Jade

Never Say Never:
Eclare Oneshot

Walking down the hallway of our high school like she does every other day, alone and afraid of what comes next. She sighs as she enters her first class of the day and everyone subconsciously quieted down. She was no one's friend, nor lover. She was no one's daughter, or loved student. She was nobody's life line of desire, or the one the makes them smile. She was their joke. Each and everyone of them.

She feels useless to the world, to everyone around her even to herself. She walks in and sits in the back of the class; in hopes not to bother anyone. The clock stroke 7:15 and like every morning he comes in late. By five minutes, because he's sulking at his locker about how much he misses her, misses the one that got away. He wasn't a friend, or a lover, he wasn't a parent or a teacher. He was just him; Eli.

She always caught her heart giving her away and beating feverishly and her palms getting clammy. Couldn't this requited feeling go away? Couldn't she be happy knowing that she was always going to be at his beck and call? But they both knew that answer. She wouldn't. If he said jump, she wouldn't even have to ask and she'd do it. Because she knew what he wanted. She knew everything about him, yet he seemed to barely remember her name. Clare. She doubted he even knew her last name.

She spent the whole class hating herself for letting her feelings get this carried away, but that wasn't a surprise. She'd been doing it for the last year. She slowly put away all her unused school supplies from her first class, and by the time everyone had left she'd be just getting out of her seat. She didn't want the chance to be bothered by people. She hated herself for getting in people's way and getting them upset. She hated her.

As she was walking out the doorway, a minute later than everyone else he grabbed her hand, what was only a simple sign of showing ones presence was the world to her. He gave her the piece of paper that said what it did every day, every time.

Come over tonight. I need you.

She didn't smile anymore at these letters like she used to. She quickly learned the difference between needing someone and loving someone. While he needed her, she loved him. She stuck it in her locker and sighed. Lately she'd been feeling that everything took extra effort to do with her life. Waking up was fine, but actually getting out of bed? That was the struggle. She would think about how there really was no reason to get up and go to school. To be tormented and to learn absolutely nothing. To not have friends and be used as amusement to the student body.

What got her out of bed? Him. Eli did. She imagined how he'd probably loose his patience with her if she didn't show up. He'd accuse her of not caring about her the way that he did but she knew that the care he felt was for the needing he felt towards her. But the caring she felt towards him was on of a lover, but she was no one's lover, and he wasn't anyone's lover either.

Walking into the school building itself was it self a stressful mental exercise. She knew the minute she entered all her natural Novocain would wear off and she'd be feeling that self-loathing that she did every time she walked through those doors.

She'd walk to her locker and pull it open, taking out the excessive amounts of work she never bothered to do, and walk to that first class and doubt herself over and over again, putting herself down because someone such as Eli couldn't even love her, and he was the only thing she had. She knew that she probably used him, but not nearly as much as he used her in her eyes.

She sighed, closing her locker and finally walking off to her next class. This was the class that she wished her personal numbing sensation would be a voluntary action because this was the class where they shared a communal desk and he never spared her a second look. He gave her looks of disgust and gave the other kids eye rolls because he was stuck with the loner freak of the school as his partner and they gave him pitiful looks and snide remarks to get him riled up. He would just smirk and shake his head, before agreeing with them and laughing about it, about her, as if she wasn't a foot away from him.

Walking out of her second class she would try to ease her heart from aching any more than it already did and she'd walk to the bathroom of the school and sit in the handicapped stall until she heard the bell ring, just sitting there thinking about how he acted around everyone and how he acted around her when they were alone. He'd never actually feel the way she did and it killed her, killed her to harbor these feelings that nearly ripped her in half every time she saw him. Half of her wanted to hate him for what he knowingly puts her through and half of her hates what she's become and blames herself no matter it's not real life. Real life is the cold hard truth. She gives in, and it's her fault. She didn't have to become his bitch for lack of a better word.

She didn't have to become his late night booty call or his therapist when he just wanted to get things off of his chest. She didn't have to be like his lap dog and fall into the depths of his green eyes knowing she had sank further into his grasp each and every day, and she was quickly drowning in it.

She walked away from the bathroom, ignoring the looks of people who were probably further insinuating more rumors about the girl whose parents both left her without a second glance. The girl whose sister is off in Kenya ignoring her existence. The girl whose knowingly hopelessly in love with someone, and she knows, just like everyone else that girls like that aren't meant to fall in love. They're not meant to love someone like she does, because every girl like Clare Edwards knows. Their hearts can't take the wreckage. Because girls like Clare Edwards are never loved back.

Walking into her second to last class of the day, Clare felt oddly more tired then before. She felt almost dead inside. She is usually more in control of herself but today she sat in her class and let her mind wonder into the unknowns and even she didn't know what was happening, but she shrugged it off. Random hatred could always be found lingering in the anatomy of the mind of Clare Edwards, it was nothing new.

Finally getting out of school she walked; dragging herself home where she was living with the four walls of her shabby apartment. She couldn't afford much, and what she could afford was paid for by the state. It kind of depressed her knowing hard working citizens were paying for a person who didn't deserve to be living's everything. Her food, that she rarely ate, her home that was unlived in and her clothes that she could easily get for free. They paid for her education that she wasn't using and her electricity that was only used to play the worst music of her generation and those before her.

She sighed as she stood in her shower, just letting the water run through the crevasses of her body. She let it trail down in droplets, not once letting it's grip off of her skin until it completely ran down every part of her body that was in it's path, and then down to the shower floor.

She lazily, yet efficiently washed her body and hair, not putting any special effort into it, she had no one to impress. She sighed and took her plain white towel off of the rack and ran it effortfully over her seemingly overworked body, and ran the comb through her knotted hair from running her fingers through it and the scrubbing she gave her scalp a few minutes ago in the shower.

The pain as she ripped through each and every knot was nothing but a pinch when she was always so focused on inner pain, outer pain seemed pointless and fixable, while inner pain scarred you for life, and others around you who cared enough to let it apply.

She dressed in a pair of three year old jeans that were loose on her underweight hips and and a t shirt that was meant for someone three times her size. She put on some generic sneakers that she didn't even put forth the effort of finding the name of and dragged herself out of her depressing four walls and into the bright light of the sky that she subconsciously shied away from.

She walked the all too familiar path way to the Goldsworthy house, avoiding the public eye as much as possible and shielded her body into the shade when ever opportunity came. It felt like an attention seeker.

Once reaching his all too familiar house, she shyly knocked on the door and backed away, hugging her body to herself as she did every other time. This happened every day, Monday through Friday, and on those rare Saturday occasions. She forced herself to go to church on Sunday. It made her feel like she was doing something with her life that didn't revolve on Eli, but she knew it did.

After a minute he walked out of the house and didn't give her a second look before walking right on by her, towards her place. The first time he did this she questioned him but he didn't reply, as if she wasn't even there, but she knew he recognized her presence because every day they'd pass the same fenced up building and he'd sit down and take a break from their long walk that she didn't really need and offer her a cigarette, but every time she'd reject. He'd just sigh and put it away, as if she hadn't denied it the day before, and the one before that.

After he completely smoked his cigarette he'd lick his dry lips and stand up waiting a few seconds for her to get herself together, and then would walk a little bit slower the rest of the way to the apartment she was forced to call home.

He'd walk in front of her, and grab the key from her hand, letting his callused fingers brush against her delicate soft ones for a second, and she'd hold her breath as it happened for that half of a second and then he'd be walking in like he owned the place. He'd walk to the bedroom and sit down on the bed, then after all of this he'd finally slowly let his barriers fall.

He'd start by looking her in her eyes and seeing the green looking solely at her gave her chills of excitement.

"How was your day?" She'd say, and those were most likely the first words she'd spoken that day, hence the raspy sound of her voice at first.

This was when the second barrier would break. He'd sigh and then lean back into the bed and she'd play therapist for a little while.

"It was fine, but I couldn't get her out of my mind again. I was at my locker and I was overwhelmed by the thoughts of her. I almost wanted to die. I love her so much, and now she's gone." This speech always varied as the weeks went on. But one common factor was always Julia and how much he'd loved her.

"She was everything to me you know?" He'd say, but not let her reply before he continued. "She was just the definition of perfection, in her whole aura and then she's just gone." And that'd be where he'd always stop, she soon realized.

"I'm sorry about her, Eli. I can see how much you love her, I'm sure she is watching over you, making sure you're okay." She reached out to put a comforting hand on his shoulder and he'd tense up as he always did.

Then the third barrier would break and he'd reach out and grab her hand, pulling her into a lying position next to him, and lean over to look at her full on. Once they he did his examination as usual he'd sigh and look back at the ceiling.

She couldn't help herself but to slowly rub circles into his hand, and reach with her other one to rub his stomach, all but cuddling with him.

He'd turn over and turn off all his barriers by kissing her harshly. He'd press his lips to her mouth and express all his pain and agony in that simple kiss.

He kissed down her neck and roughly pull at her t shirt, lifting it up over her head as fluidly as he could. God she was beautiful, she was perfectly impaired. He rubbed circles against her cold flesh, leaving heat in their wake as he continued his motions down her body, kissing and nibbling at the soft flesh of her abdomen and then finally reaching down to her pants.

He'd hear that lovely sound escape her perfect lips and he'd all but rip the jeans off of her. They were in the way of the beauty behind it. Once they were off he would trail his hands over her thighs and shortly reminisce in the feeling of her silky smooth skin.

His heart would break all the more because every time this happened he would love the girl that lay beneath him all the more and he didn't know how he did it. How he lied to her each and every day, how he hurt her emotionally. The worst damage you could do to a person. How he'd keep bringing Julia up as if she was more important than Clare was. As if that were possible.

He ran his fingers over her heated area and she let out a strangled moan, and he closed his eyes wishing that his ears would be blessed to hear just that sound and that sound alone.

He swiftly pulled them off and climbed on top of her, looking her in the eyes. Blue clashing with Green and he had to force his gaze away from those traps. He loved her eyes and every time he looked into her eyes he had the urge to just tell her that she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever laid eyes on. That she deserved better, better than him. That what they had was the most important thing to him, no matter how illogical it was. He wanted to tell her that her perfection was taking his heart away and as he looked into her eyes he wanted nothing more than to love the girl beneath him.

He knew that expressing any of those feelings was crossing an unsaid, unseen line that they both knew existed. He knew that if he slowly made love to the girl he wishes he could say was his lover, she'd catch on and things would have to change. He knew. So he expressed everything he ever felt in raw heated moments of flash pounding into the lovely girl beneath him.

He would groan and pant and she would let out soft little moans that she was too scared to fully experience, in fear of him not liking it and he knew it.

He often found himself thinking of how it'd be if they really were to make love to each other, to have her completely let go. But every time those thoughts crossed his mind, he got immediately hard and his heart started to pound at an erratic pace, even for him.

After they finished, He'd roll off of her and lay there to catch his breath, and to reapply those barriers he struggles to keep up. The split second before he got up to get dressed and leave and go home and let a few tears go to repeat this process tomorrow he heard her soft angelic voice from the other side of the bed break the silence.

"Um, Eli, do you think you could just do me a quick favor?" He hesitated, what could she be asking for? But he knew that he wanted to do anything for her.

"Depends." He deadpanned.

"Could you just, hold me for a little bit?" She asked, and he immediately turned his head towards her to see that she was looking at him with an almost begging expression.

He sighed and looked away from the trap of beauty in her eyes.

"I'm sorry I can't." He said and got up, pulling on all his clothes making his way to the front door. He opened the door and before he left he did something he never would do before today. He looked back.

She lay in her bed, on her side huddled into herself, crying softly and he didn't know what changed his mind, but all he remembered thinking that night was that maybe, just maybe being with her wasn't the worst possible thing for her. Maybe it's what she needed, what he needed.

That was what was running through his mind as he walked back over towards the naked beauty, disrobing himself and slipping into bed next to her. She stopped crying instantly and actually smiled. Clare Edwards was smiling at him.

He knew he found a trait about her that broke him more than her eyes because that instant he let go of his boundaries and his barriers and was brutally honest for once.

"I love you." He said loud and clear into the night, and looked to see the beautiful girl already asleep next to him. He sighed.

Yes, there was definitely a difference between loving someone, and needing someone, because he loved, and needed, Clare Edwards no matter how they let their feelings unfold.