People Change
Summary: "Have you ever been ice skating?" Slight Elle/Claire.
Disclaimed.
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Elle was reading -- she read a lot, since life in books was always so much better than her own -- when Claire came up, blushing. They had been friends forever, or close enough anyway, and still, Claire always blushed when she was nervous. Didn't she get it? She didn't have to be nervous around Elle. "What's up?" she asked. She smiled, so Claire would know that she shouldn't be scared.
"Well," Claire said. "There's this new ice rink that opened downtown -- have you ever been ice skating?"
Elle had. It had been terrible, all that water, all around her. Her mother (she could barely remember her, now) had tried to tell her that it was frozen, it couldn't hurt her, but she had cried, and cried, and sparked a lot, until her father gave up and made her go home, so she wouldn't reveal her powers to the public. "Yeah," she told Claire. Claire didn't need to know that she had hated it.
"It's fun, right?" she asked, eyes shining. "Do you want to come with me?"
Elle bit her lip. She could tell that Claire really did like skating, and she didn't want to say no, only it was water. "I…" she prepared to lie, to say that her father had chores that she needed to do, or that she didn't have clothes that were warm enough --
-- and Claire's face fell twenty stories into the dirt.
"…sure," she said, defeated. She would do anything, if it would make Claire happy.
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Claire was happy -- no, she was ecstatic. Elle hadn't been able to go anywhere with her in forever, but she was here now.
Granted, she didn't look too happy, skating glumly around the edge of the rink, but any progress was progress, no matter how small a step it was. Sure, they'd gone out together before, but recently, Elle's father was keeping her in the house more and more often. This was the first time they'd been able to just hang out together in a while, and Claire was determined to make the most of it.
She skated up to Elle, wobbling slightly on rented skates. Her own were much better, but she'd grown out of them a while ago, and her parents had seen no reason to get her new ones -- how often did one ice skate in Texas, after all?
"Hey," Elle said. She managed a small smile. "Are you having fun?"
Claire nodded. "Mm hmm. Are you?" she asked.
Elle looked away.
"It's okay," Claire said. She would have liked to stay longer, but Elle came first. She should be spending her rare free moments doing something she liked. "We can leave, if you want."
"No, it's just --" Claire waited. She knew Elle needed to talk it out in her own time. "I can't skate." Well, it wasn't the complete truth, she could tell, but Claire would take what she could get.
"Then I'll teach you," she said. "Come on!" Claire grabbed Elle's hand and dug her toe pick into the ice, pushing off and bringing the other blonde with her.
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Elle had gone skating before. She had hated it then, and she would have hated it now if not for Claire.
Claire.
Things change, and people change, but who would've guessed, that one girl could change everything? Three months ago, she would never have even considered going near so much frozen water, but somehow, it just wasn't as bad as it was before. Three months ago, she never would have disobeyed her father. Now, she was ignoring his declaration that she would not see "that useless cheerleader" again, because it was Claire.
Claire was worth it, worth everything she had ever done, every rule she had ever broken in her name or with her encouragement or even just to see her when life sucked more than usual.
So maybe it was worth all this water, to spend more time with her. Maybe she owed it to the both of them to have some fun.
Elle skated on top of the ice. Right foot, left foot. Right, left. Claire's hand was warm in hers. This wasn't so bad.
She cracked a smile.