I heard a small sigh as I looked up from my notebook. The surprised look on my face turned to one of contentment and relaxation as I noticed that she was asleep.

Clare and I had come to my house after school to work on our English assignment for the weekend. I had invited her at the last minute, and to my utmost delight, she didn't refuse.

I drove us to my humble abode after school and we had wasted hours of our time before we realized we hadn't gotten any work done.

Well, in all honesty, I didn't notice that we didn't start our papers, but Clare actually cares about her grade so I played along.

We went to my basement and sat on the couch together. Pens and pencils, check. Notebook paper, check. Popcorn on the coffee table, check.

We began working in comfortable silence, the only sounds being the scratching of pencils on paper or the annoying squeak of an eraser as one of us made a mistake.

I had a pretty stable beginning, but I was soon unable to focus on my English paper when I had something oh so much more interesting sitting to my right.

I noticed that Clare worked with intensity, biting and gnawing on her lower lip and she emitted sighs and little grunts of frustration when her pencil didn't write as fast as her mind spoke to her. I was writing a lot slower than she was- due to the current destraction of Clare scratching behind her ear- and didn't realize when the sounds of her pencil against the paper abruptly ended.

I looked up from my mediocre attempt at our English assignment (Clare would edit it later anyway) and saw that my English partner/angel had drifted off while working.

I knew that she had been having trouble at home with her parents and I guess my noise cancellation headphones hadn't completely drowned out the issues at the Edwards' residence. I knew that sleep was hard to come by these days for Clare, and she was lucky if she even got a few hours in before school each night.

I slowly extended my arm and brushed her bangs behind her ear. I hadn't realized I was this close to her while I was writing, but I guess she must have scooted towards me. How cute.

She gently stirred in her sleep and I removed her notebook from her relaxed fingers. I closed the spiral binding and blushed slightly as I noticed she had doodled my initials, 'EG', inside a heart on the front cover.

The thought of her delicate fingers writing my name on any of her papers made my heart race and I carefully got up from the couch so I wouldn't wake her. I walked around to the back of the couch and opened a large cabinet. I removed a black, fuzzy blanket from the top shelf and hugged it to myself as I walked back to her sleeping form.

I gently laid the blanket over her body and brushed her bangs back one more time before I sat back down.

I let out a puff of air and propped my feet up next to our long forgotten bowl of popcorn. I snuck one more glance at her before reaching for the remote and her body slowly fell, the top of her head landing in my lap. She smiled in her sleep and I reached down to pet her shoulder as I fixed the blanket.

I let my long fingers rest on her waist as I yawned sleepily. I knew that her parents were past the point of caring if she was home, especially on a weekend, so I refrained from reaching into her bag to get her phone to let them know where she was.

I pressed the button on the remote that controlled the lights and turned them off. Sleep was sneaking up on me and I abandoned the thought of switching on the television as I yawned again.

I relaxed more into the couch and my mind whispered to the sleeping beauty on my lap, 'Goodnight, Clare.'

Almost as if she heard me, her perfect lips opened and called my name, "Eli," before closing once more and settling into a tiny grin.

My body pleasantly tingled with the thought of me occupying her dreams and the ever-increasing need to sleep. I looked down at her one last time before my eyes closed and I was invited into the realm of slumber.

Thank you guys so much for the reviews, alerts, and favorites on my other story. I haven't written a thing in so long I didn't expect to get such positive reinforcement.

I usually don't update/post regularly either so I'm super surprised I'm even posting another story tonight, but this drabble/one-shot idea just entered my mind and I just had to write it down.

Don't forget to review everyone, and post more EClare stories to occupy my time before Still Fighting It premieres on Wednesday!

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