A/N: YAY! It's finally the end of year school holidays for me, which means 6 weeks of NO SCHOOL!!!! WOOHOO! Which means I might be able to squeeze out the next chapter of 'Love Story'. Which is good since I haven't updated that story for about three months. Oops. Anyways, this randomly floated into my mind a few months ago so I wrote it, got it beta-read, and completley forgot about it. So now that it has been rediscoverred, I decided to post it. This maybe a one shot or a continuous story. Depends on if I have any ideas about later chapters. Enough of my rambling, hope you enjoy this oneshot or the first chapter of a continuous story! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Elle was 6, she met Claire Bennet.
Elle always sat alone at school. She was messed up already, the product of abusive and neglectful parents who would always hit her and simply hate her for being alive. All the other kids in the grade were afraid to go near her, let alone talk to her. Elle had an ability; a potentially deadly ability if she used it right. She could create electricity with the power of her mind and use it to do different things, like shoot it out of her fingertips with pinpoint accuracy and create it into a ball that she used to intimidate the other kids. She used her ability to harm other kids as a way to let out all her pent up confusion, anger, hurt and sadness that her parents caused her daily.
The day she met Claire, she was sitting in her usual spot in the corner of the courtyard, watching as the other kids squealed in delight and played in the sun on the equipment. She had just finished her lunch and since she still had an hour of time to kill, she leaned back into the wall behind her and let her mind wander. She thought of what she would do and where she would go after school. Since she had managed to steal ten dollars from her mother's purse she resolved that she would go to the convenience store around the corner of the school and buy some chocolate bars and play on the swings in the park and eat her chocolate before going back home to face her parents once more. She then thought about her parents, and the question that she would ponder about daily wormed its way into the forefront of her mind. Why did her parents seem to hate her so badly? As far as she knew, Elle had done nothing wrong. She always did what her parent ordered her to do, and she never complained or questioned them. She kept out of their way and minded her own business but they always still managed to find a reason to yell or hit her. Elle didn't know what to do when they did scream or hit her, she just took the beating or scolding and think that it was something that she had done. But then she remembered that she had done nothing to upset them. She feels her eyes tearing up and she cries. She cries because she is so confused about why her parents treat her like the way they do. She cries because she doesn't know what to do anymore. She cries because she wants what she knows she can't have; a loving family that cares for and about her. She's seen the other kid's parent or parents when she walks home alone; they always greet their child with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, before they walk out of the school gates hand in hand. All Elle is greeted with is the sound of her parents arguing again and objects such as empty bottles or a fist thrown her way.
A soft hand on her shoulder and the words 'are you ok?' jolt Elle out of her thoughts and she looks up and sees Claire Bennet sitting on the seat next to her, an emotion that she couldn't recognize in her eyes. In Elle's opinion, Claire had everything. Friends, popularity, all the toys she wanted but most of all, a caring, tender and loving family that actually cared about her. In a way, Elle kind of hated her for being so perfect and having everything Elle wanted.
Elle almost blurts out 'no' before she remembers that she's Elle Bishop; the girl that everybody's afraid of. But then she realizes that the image of toughness is fading away quickly because she's been caught doing the most vulnerable looking thing that she can think of: crying. Reluctantly, she shrugs off the hand on her shoulder, wipes her eyes and tries to say in a haughty voice 'why wouldn't I be?' There are large cracks in her show and Elle knows that Claire can see them.
'Because you were crying.' Claire replies and Elle recognizes the emotion in the other girl's voice and eyes: concern. She's only seen it once in her life but she can't remember when.
Elle doesn't know how to reply, so she simply looks down at her feet and she feels tears gathering in her eyes again as she sniffles, trying her hardest not to start crying in front of Claire Bennet. Claire, with the perfect family who lived the perfect life and the person that Elle envied the most. She wishes that she could live her life, but she knows that she can't and she never will.
Finally, she gives in to the bone deep need to let the tears pooling under her eye lids to flow freely. The other blonde sees the seemingly unbreakable girl crumble before her eyes and she makes a sympathetic noise and she wraps her arms around Elle, hugging her protectively. For a moment Elle stops crying because she realizes that she is being hugged, something that almost never happens to her. Then she resumes crying harder than ever into Claire's shoulder because of her parent's neglect, the hurt, confusion and sadness that they cause her daily and the shock of being held so tenderly but firmly by someone. She hears the other girl making 'shhh'-ing noises in her ear and small shapes being mapped out across her shoulder blades by gentle, caring and small fingers.
In three simple gestures, Claire Bennet had managed to gently brush aside all the iron hard defenses Elle had already learned to build up around her heart. Elle sobs into the other girl's shoulder until she feels like she can't cry anymore. She picks her head off Claire's soaked shoulder and says as sincerely as she could 'thank you.'
Claire smiled beautifully at Elle and replied 'you're welcome. Do you want to go play on the swings with me?' She then stood up from the bench and stuck out her hand, offering it to the other girl.
Elle looked at the proffered hand and she couldn't resist placing her hand into Claire's. They smiled at each other and Claire tugged on Elle's hands, leading her to the two empty swings. They talked and laughed for the remainder of the lunchtime while the other kids stared in disbelief at them.
When the bell rang at the end of lunch, a bunch of girl immediately rushed over to Claire and throwing dirty looks at Elle began to drag Claire away. Elle, understanding that the other blonde needed to get back to her friends, sadly whispered 'goodbye Claire' before hanging her head in defeat and sadness and wrapping her arms tightly around torso, hugging herself. It was a habit that Elle had. She had learned to hug herself when no-one was there to hold her. She looked down just in time and didn't see Claire shrugged off all the hands that were pulling and tugging at her but she did hear her say 'no. I'm going sit with Elle in class.'
Elle's head snapped up, eyes widening. The girls all gasped and one of them had the nerve to say in a snobbish voice, 'If you go with Elle now, you can't be friends with us anymore.'
Elle felt like storming over to the girl who had just said that and shocking her, but she remembered that she was Claire's friend, and she didn't think Claire would like it very much if she electrocuted her friend. Elle thinks that Claire's not going to be friends with her anymore, because if she did, she would lose her other friends. So she turned away and hugged herself even tighter. This time, she doesn't hear Claire's retort of 'fine' and the girls' gasps. However, she does feel the warm hand slip into her own and she turns around to see Claire's big, blue eyes smiling at her and she holds out her hand, motioning for Elle to take it so they could go to class.
They walk off to class hand in hand together, ignoring the stares of the girls and the rest of the grade. Claire sits next to Elle at the table that is at the back of the room which no-one else occupies because Elle sits there. For once, Elle understands what the teacher is teaching them in maths because Claire whispers explanations in her ear. Elle returns the favor by helping Claire spell words when they are writing things in English. After school, Claire hugs her again and waves goodbye to her before running off to her mother. Elle smiles and heads straight home, mentally blocking out the sound of her parent's arguing and expertly dodges the bottles that come flying her way. She locks herself in her room and she smiles to herself.
Elle is 6 when she meets Claire, her first, true friend.
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