You Can Count On Me (In Your Darkest Hour)
Summary: Clare's thoughts on Darcy's rape and why she went to Kenya.
A/N: So this is inspired because I watched the season six Degrassi episode, Eyes Without a Face again for the millionth time and was struck by how good of a sister Clare is to Darcy after the whole online photos thing and Adams coming to see her. Clare was just adorable and so mature and kind in it and she said that she would punch anyone who was mean to Darcy and I needed to write this.
Set shortly after Darcy's rape and when Darcy is going to Kenya.
Clare Edwards didn't know exactly why her sister screamed in the middle of the night. She didn't know why Darcy had tried to kill herself by slitting her wrist in the girl's locker room showers and she didn't know why her sister had lied about the media immersion teacher. Her parents wouldn't tell her, thinking that she was much too young to know the darkness of it all. But it was so hard to listen to her sister's cries in the middle of the night. Hearing her sister's voice that used to be so full of laughter and so strong from being a cheerleader become desperate and afraid, screaming words like, "No" and "Please! It hurts." It seemed that the only way Clare could get her sister to calm down was by climbing in the bed beside her and wrapping her small arms around the older girl's lean, shaking frame.
"It's okay Darcy. Let it out." She'd whisper into her sister's hair until finally, the shudders and the choked sobs and heaving breaths would stop.
In the morning, she wouldn't mention it. She didn't want to pressure her sister by bringing it up. When her sister was ready, she would tell her.
It was about a week later when she finally learned what happened. When she finally couldn't take it anymore and just asked her older sister what scared her so much at night.
It was then that she found out about the rape at the ski lodge that her family had no idea that Darcy had went to. About the drink that had been spiked with roofies, more commonly known as the date rape drug and how her sister woke up naked. How the only thing her sister could recall was how the guy smelled and not being able to fight back. And about the STD that he'd given her.
The two sisters cried for what had happened to Darcy and how screwed up it had made her. It was so horrible. It was what nightmares were made of and Clare couldn't believe that it had happened to Darcy---she just couldn't. And the fact that the rapist had attacked other girls in the same fashion and had yet to be caught made it all the more horrific. She hated the monster who'd done this to her sister. Hated them so much and felt so horrible about it! It was a sin to hate someone but she couldn't help it. That stranger---coward had ruined her sister's life. Darcy couldn't even fall asleep unless Clare was there beside her, whispering that everything was okay. She'd talked with Manny who had invited Darcy over for a sleepover two nights ago and the older, dark haired girl had told her rather worriedly that Darcy had woke up screaming in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep.
The next school year, when Clare had began grade nine all dressed up in her private school uniform, she'd eyed all the boys she'd pass in the hallways. She wondered if this guy or that one was the one who had hurt her sister, who'd taken something so very important from her---and she knew that Darcy wondered the same. A week later, when Darcy had told her that she would be leaving for Kenya in a few weeks, she'd understood without explanation. Her sister needed to get away from everything to heal properly. Of course, their mother and father hadn't been as understanding as Clare but they'd given Darcy the permission to go when Clare had begged them to.
And weeks later, as Clare and Darcy said their goodbyes in the airport, Darcy had hugged her little sister to her and told Clare that she'd been her savior all through her nightmares and after her rape. And it was then that Clare knew what the word sisters really meant.
