Hello everyone! Well this is the first chapter of just a short story that's been buzzing inside my head. I wanted to explore what could have happened at the dance if Fitz had decided to hurt Eli by hurting Clare. So I hope you enjoy this first chapter, and check out some of the other Degrassi one-shots that I've posted :)
I don't own anything here but my plot.
He stalked her into a corner. Corners are good, she tried to convince herself. Corners are easiest to defend.
His eyes were hungry, sending fear-filled chills down her spine. She felt her back press against the wall, but still he came towards her, his eyes drinking her in greedily, like the eyes of a lion as he prepares to pounce. Her eyebrows furrowed and she tried to appeal to his moral side. "Please, Fitz, just leave me alone."
He grinned maliciously. His hand reached up to press against the wall next to her head. She gasped at the thump and looked over to his hand, then back to his suddenly close face. "Fitz, no," she tried to say, but he pressed his hips against hers and breathed in sharply at the contact. Clare let out a gasp of surprise and disgust and tried to move away from him, but he pressed her harder against the wall, locking his hands around her wrists, holding them against the wall.
She shut her eyes and locked her lips together and thrashed around, trying to get Fitz off of her. She didn't see his triumphant smile, but she felt his lips on hers, trying to part them to gain access to her mouth. She shook harder, then, when she felt him barely slide past her lips, opened her mouth and bit the intruding pink tongue, hard.
Fitz pulled back, taking his hands away from her wrists to wipe the blood from his mouth. "You little bitch." She thought that if this were any other occasion she would have scoffed at his lack of imaginative words, but at that present moment she was making a beeline for the door of the locker room. She'd just barely made it when she felt a hand fist in her hair and yank her back. She fell to the floor and hit her head against the concrete floor with a loud and sickening crack.
She saw Fits smirk at her through the black spots clouding her vision. He moved down to straddle her hips and, when she tried to fight him off, backhanded her across the face, causing her world to go black. The last thing she felt was Fitz slowly taking off her dress.
When she woke up she was naked and her clothes were strewn across the locker-room floor. Clare scooted herself into the nearest corner and wrapped her arms protectively around her body. She looked around for Fitz, but he had long since cleared out. She felt tears falling from her eyes, but couldn't find the strength within herself to wipe them away.
Clare kept staring at the door nervously, scared Fitz would come back and rape her again. She closed her eyes but cried out when she did. Fitz's face smirked back at her, victorious, as if he had finally beat Eli. He'd finally won in their war.
When she opened her eyes she was crying harder. Hiccups sounded in between sobs as she lay there. She didn't even think to pick up her clothes and put them on. All she could think was that she was broken, tainted. She felt raw and destroyed.
"Goddamnit, Fitz," Eli cursed under his breath. He hadn't heard from Clare in hours and the dance had already ended thirty minutes ago. Alli had called him when she couldn't find Clare after the dance and he heard her blonde friend say she saw Fitz leading Clare out of the dance and down the hall.
Eli had hurried to the school as soon as he could, but, though he'd been searching for her for ten minutes, he was unable to find Clare. He was about to give up when, near the gym locker-rooms, he heard a loud cry. He dashed in the direction the sound had come and his heart broke when he saw Clare in the corner of the boy's P.E. locker-room, crouched in a corner, her clothes strewn about lazily.
"Clare," he said, catching her off-guard by the judge of her flinch. She looked up at him with large doe eyes and he saw the tears and red-rimmed eyes. He rushed to her side and tried to touch her to help her up and get dressed but she flinched away from his hands and cried out as if he'd burned her.
"Fitz did this," he spat between clenched teeth. He was going to kill Fitz this time. He'd warned him and now he'd sealed his fate. Eli looked helplessly at Clare, wanting to help but not knowing what to do.
"Clare, tell me what you need," he pleaded. Seeing her like this—it killed him. This was entirely his fault. If he had just seen to it that Fitz was locked away forever Clare wouldn't have had to go through this.
When he first walked in she thought he was Fitz. Even after he'd moved to her side she thought he'd hurt her. She was scared, seeing Fitz everywhere she looked. He was against the wall, smirking; sitting on the bench, grinning; sliding down the door, malicious, hungry. He was right next to her, reaching out to touch her again.
Only when he began to talk did it begin to register in her discombobulated mind that it was Eli sitting next to her, trying to help her. She looked at him in a new light, as a savior, as refuge. She pleaded at him with her eyes, urging him to know what to do when she herself didn't. "Eli," she whimpered, more tears streaming down her face. It seemed they would never stop raining moisture down her cheeks.
He reached out to her again, slowly, placing his hand on her arm gently. When she didn't pull away he reached out to cup her cheek and wipe away some of the tears. He looked heartbroken to her, upset, like a child who just found out his cat had been run over by a car.
She cried harder at the look in his eyes.
He needed to find her her clothes and get her to the hospital. He knew she wouldn't want to go, but that was the best place for her at that moment, if only for them to get a positive ID on that bastard Fitz. This time he wouldn't stop until he was behind bars.
When he began to stand Clare grabbed onto his arm tightly. "Where are you going?" she asked quietly.
"I was going to get you your clothes to help you get dressed," he said just as softly. When he felt her hand loosen he stood up and hurried around the room, collecting her things. When he crouched once again in front of her she was folded further in upon herself. "Clare, I need to get you to a hospital," he said, pleading with her.
She looked at him, still silently crying, and shook her head. His eyebrows furrowed and he tried again. "Clare, we need to get you looked at. I'm," he had to pause, lest his voice crack from strain, "worried about you. I hate to see you like this, hate to see you broken."
She looked up into his eyes then, pain and despair present in hers.
Her mind had regressed into the most primal of stages, focusing on protecting itself and its host body. Everything screamed at her to trust Eli and go to the hospital, but her mind would not allow it. When she looked into his eyes again, when she saw the worry for her in them, she conceded tentatively to his plan and unfolded her arms from around her body. Eli helped her carefully to her feet and slid her bra onto her chest, hooking it in the back. Clare pulled on her panties and allowed Eli to help her with the dress.
His hands were delicate as they brushed against her skin, his touch intimate, but in the chastest of ways. She tried to remain calm, but when he tried to lead her out of the room and into the school she cried out and ran to her corner, crouching in it again.
She was so broken. He never wanted to see her like this, ever. He'd promised himself, after he realized the true extent of his feelings for her, that he would not let anything bad happen. So why was she crouched in a corner, fearing for her life?
Eli walked slowly over to Clare and pulled out his cell phone. "I'm going to call for an ambulance, Clare. When they get here I'll let them take you and will follow in Morty."
Clare shook her head and reached out for him in panic. "No. I need you here. With me." Her brain wasn't thinking in complete thoughts. It was scattered and disjointed, but kept screaming, "Eli. Safe. Eli. Safe." She trusted that more than anything at that point.
Eli nodded and said, "I'll go with you, then." When she nodded he dialed nine-one-one and spoke briefly to the operator. When he put his phone in his pocket again he wrapped his fingers around Clare's a sat with her. Fifteen minutes rolled by and he heard sirens outside of the front doors of the school.
When voices called out for them, Eli called back. Two male paramedics entered the room and looked at Eli and Clare. When their eyes fell on the broken girl they approached slowly. "Hello, ma'am. My name is Ryan; I'm a paramedic. This is Bryce. We are here to help you." The paramedic named Ryan stopped a good distance away from Clare.
Eli felt Clare's hand squeeze his tighter. "It's ok, Clare, they are here to take us to the hospital," Eli whispered softly. Clare looked into his eyes pleadingly, but she nodded and let him help her to stand. The other paramedic, Bryce, pulled the stretcher they'd brought in with them in front of Clare. He motioned for her to sit down on it and, with prompting from Eli, she complied.
The trip to the hospital was horrendous. Clare was nervous the entire way and refused to let go of Eli's hand. Even when they had reached the hospital she wouldn't let go, not when they performed the rape kit on her, not when they called her parents, not when they gave her the morning-after-pill and Eli made her swallow it down.
He hurt to see her in this kind of pain. This wasn't right. She wasn't smiling, or speaking, and the twinkle in her beautiful eyes was missing—they were dull and lifeless. She was scaring him, and he didn't know how to help.
The nurse came back to the room to inform the pair of teens that Clare's parents were unreachable. Clare was to be admitted to the hospital for over-night observation, but Eli was going to have to return home.
That got a reaction from Clare. When they told her that Eli had to go home she immediately protested. He had to stay, she demanded, because he was the only one she trusted.
After much fighting with the nurse, Eli was allowed to stay the night with Clare.
Well what did you think?
Let me know!
Em =]