My friends and I were drawing names/genres out of a cup & I ended up with Eli/Jenna: Fluff, but it came out a lot more like Flangst, because I can't write happy things, lol. Enjoy!
Eli wasn't interested in Jenna like that – he was pretty sure he never would be – but when he'd found out about her pregnancy and about KC leaving her, he'd had to get involved. Adam, Clare – neither of them knew the whole story. The reason he and Julia had been fighting, everything he'd lost when she'd died... there was just so much more to the story. Things no one needed to know. But Jenna... he could see Julia in her, and it drew him in like a moth to a flame.
He'd felt awful when he'd learned about Clare and Jenna's history, but not awful enough to stop spending time with her. She needed him – and in a twisted way, he needed her too. He needed to go to her appointments, to help her shop for baby clothes, to help her think up names. It was therapeutic to him.
Of course, he made sure to make time for Clare as well, but he could tell she was upset with him. Maybe he'd need to tell her the whole truth soon – but for now, Jenna knowing was enough. For now, she was the only one it mattered to.
The lack of romantic attachment wasn't only on his end, either – he wasn't leading her on at all, since she wasn't interested. This was purely friendship taken to a deeper level. Jenna needed someone to lean on and Eli could be that somebody – so that's exactly what he'd let himself become. He didn't get what the big deal was when he'd told Clare that Jenna had asked him to be there when she got her c-section – couldn't comprehend why she was so upset. All he could think about was how happy he'd been when she'd asked – but if he really stopped to think about it, all he wanted was for her to be Julia. All he wanted was to watch his girlfriend give birth to his child.
It was okay, though – it was part of why they worked, because all Jenna wanted was for him to be KC.