The cursor on Claire's computer screen kept blinking. It was rather annoyingly waiting for her to type something, but all she could do was stare at it. The article that she was attempting to write, a review of a new nightclub, was not coming together as easily as she would have liked. She had brought the file home with the intention of finishing it that night, but her mind was not cooperating. All she could think about was her past, and events that had happened nine years ago were somehow much clearer in her mind than the details of the club she had visited on Wednesday night.

Claire decided to take a break and to come back to her article later. In a worst-case scenario, she could finish writing it at work tomorrow, but she sincerely hoped that it wouldn't come to that. She was planning to leave early in order to make the wedding rehearsal, and didn't need to add anything else to her already full workload. Claire saved her file to a disk, and then got up and wandered through the kitchen. She surveyed the contents of her fridge before grabbing a can of Diet Coke, and continuing on her way out to the small balcony. The view of downtown always helped to clear her head.

As Claire popped open her soda, it let out a slow hiss, seemingly voicing her frustration for her. She was feeling more anxious than she had expected, and she could've done without all the reflecting on the past that the impending wedding was bringing on. Personally, she blamed Andy. It was his fault that the Breakfast Club would be together again for the first time since the summer of 1985. Well, they wouldn't all be together. One person was never coming back. And maybe that was why she couldn't concentrate.

Six years later, and Claire still hadn't completely gotten over John. The love that wouldn't go away had been the source of much of her guilt over the years. How could she still love him? How could she not give her whole heart to any of the men that she had dated since? She supposed that it was John Bender's everlasting revenge that she be alone forever, and unable to love anyone with the same intensity with which she had loved him. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but the memories were slowly resurfacing.

Claire had first moved into the city eight years ago after she graduated from high school. John had already been living there for about a year when she had moved in with him. Their apartment was pretty run-down by her standards, and it didn't have a good view of anything except the building next door, but she hadn't cared. It was twenty minutes away from her parent's house and that was all that had mattered at the time.

Her mother, predictably, had been extremely upset when Claire had announced that she was moving out. Her father, on the other hand, hadn't been at all surprised, and had very vocally offered her anything that she needed. She had suspected that he had been so insistent on supporting her because he had known how much it would infuriate her mother. Claire had stubbornly refused his money, aside from what would cover the cost of her tuition, because she was tired of feeling used. She was determined to prove how independent she was, consequences be damned.

In the beginning, things had been great, and Claire had been certain that her love for John and his for her was all that she would ever need. A new sense of freedom had come with everything she had done, and she had found a quaint humor in things like their kitchen only having two cupboards, one of which was over the fridge. But the novelty had quickly worn off, and at some point her feelings for John had no longer been enough to keep her going.

Claire had discovered that her new freedom had come at a price, and no matter how much she had tried to deny it, she had been unprepared for living a lifestyle that didn't allow her to just buy whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. Actually having to think about where money was coming from had been a foreign concept. Heated arguments with John about her spending habits had become an everyday occurrence, and somewhere along the way they had lost respect for each other.

When the bills had started piling up, as well as the demands of taking care of an apartment, holding down a part-time job, and keeping on top of her coursework, Claire had felt like she was heading for a breakdown. It wasn't until she had gotten drunk at a college party, that she had realized that there was a way to get some relief from all the stress in her life. She had wondered back then, if perhaps her mother had had the right idea all along.

Drinking had worked for a time, but eventually she had needed to consume more and more alcohol just to make it through the day. And while her friends might have looked the other way, John had never been reluctant to express his displeasure with her coping mechanism. She hated that—hated that he had become mature and responsible, while she hadn't been able to adjust to living a life that Daddy didn't finance.

After a while, every piece of her relationship with John had been fracture. Looking back on it, Claire thought that she must have realized that all it would take was one last push to make the whole thing crumble down. Why then, she wondered, had she done nothing to prevent the inevitable collapse?

She had been cooking supper when John had come home that night. She had gone out to the other room to greet him, and they had wound up in another argument. She had started it, but he was the one who had ended it. The slap had turned out to be the last straw. Claire's world as she had known it had suddenly come to a screeching halt.

At first, all she had been able to feel was the sting of the impact, but when that had given way, her heart had broken with immense disappointment. Anger had followed shortly after. Claire remembered shouting at him and throwing things. She also remembered telling him to get out. And that was exactly what he had done.

He had packed a bag and fled the apartment quicker than she would have thought possible. She hadn't even tried to stop him, she had just watched him go. It had registered in her mind that he was gone when the apartment door had closed behind him, but at the time, Claire hadn't thought that he would be gone forever. She had cried for a couple of hours that night, and then drank until she passed out.

Claire had felt lost for a long time after John had left. He had been her life for three years. He was always going to be her future. Without him—without that path, she hadn't known what to do. She had been so consumed with pain and confusion, that she had done the only thing she could to try to stop it. She had pushed everything that reminded her of John away.

In doing so, she had almost lost everything, including all of her friends. Andy and Allison had been among the first casualties. They had wanted to know what had happened. And what could she have tell them? Not the truth. She hadn't been able to bring herself to tell them that. Not when lying had been so much easier.

"I don't know where he went! He just packed up his stuff and left," Claire insisted, feigning ignorance. Her head was pounding and she wished that they would leave so that she could go back to bed.

"Bullshit!" Andy exclaimed. "This is the same crap you pulled in high school when John thought you were going out with Parker. You just broke up and none of us knew what was going on. It might have been forgivable then, but now it won't fly. We're your friends, and I think we deserve the truth."

Claire picked at her nail polish in order to avoid looking him in the eyes. "I don't know what else to tell you guys. We just decided that it wasn't going to work out. I mean, we argued all the time, so…"

"That's a pretty lame excuse," Allison commented. "And if it was a mutual agreement, then why would he have to disappear without telling anyone where he was going?"

They stared expectantly at Claire, but she didn't offer up any further explanation, she just couldn't. She couldn't even bring herself to think about that night, let alone tell someone else about it. She just wanted to blame John and move on.

"Fine, whatever," Andy finally said. "Let's go, Alli, she obviously doesn't trust us enough to tell us what's really going on."

Andy and Allison had both returned to college that Fall still mad at Claire, not that she had cared at the time. It had been years before she could even think about trying to rebuild her relationship with them. She suspected that Brian was at least in part to thank for their eventual turn around. He had been the one friend who had always looked out for her—and the only one she hadn't managed to drive away.

It started to rain, but Claire lingered on the balcony for a few moments longer. There was something comforting about the city lights at night, and the constant movement of traffic down below made her feel a little less alone.

xxx

"Brian!" Andy shouted over the sound of the baggage carousel.

Brian turned around and saw a familiar face heading towards him. "Hey, Andy," he greeted him, allowing Andy to pull him into a 'bro hug'. When he released him, Brian looked around for Allison. "Where's the bride-to-be?" he asked, thinking that she might have ridden along to the airport.

"At home, keeping four of her bridesmaids company," Andy said, rolling his eyes. "Honestly, I was glad to have a reason to get out of there."

Growing up with three older brothers apparently hadn't prepared Andy for a house full of women. Brian thought of his younger sister's sleepover parties and laughed, "I can sympathize."

"I don't know how you did it, man."

"I mostly just locked myself in my room," Brian said. "Is one of those for me?" he asked, pointing to the two umbrellas in Andy's hand. He had heard the rain pounding down on the roof of the ramp as he was exiting the plane, and had hoped that Andy had parked somewhere close by.

"Yeah, but I don't know how much help they're gonna be now. The wind really started to pick up a few minutes ago."

"Good old Chicago weather," Brian mused. Then, seeing his suitcase come around on the conveyor belt, said, "Here, can you hold this for a second?" and slid the strap of his carry-on bag off his shoulder and handed it to Andy. He had just enough time to rush over and grab his suitcase before it went around for another pass.

"Did you pack bricks or something? Why is this thing so heavy?" Andy asked when Brian returned with his luggage.

"I'll take it back if you don't think you can handle it," Brian offered, holding out his hand.

Andy waved him off. "Relax, I've got it. Seriously, though, is our wedding present in here?"

Brian chuckled. "No, I brought my laptop with me so that I could do some work on the plane."

"Ooh, fancy," Andy teased.

Brian shrugged. "Not really. It's just the standard ThinkPad 700 that came out last year. Although, it is pretty powerful and does have a 120MB hard drive," he boasted. "Plus, I don't even need a mouse because—" Sensing Andy's eyes were about to glaze over, Brian changed the subject. "So, uh, how's Claire been doing? She hasn't called me in a few months."

"That's because she's been up to her eyeballs in work since her promotion," Andy told him as they started walking toward the exit. "Of course, that's only going on what Allison has told me. I haven't actually seen her since February."

"I'm glad that I'm not the only one she's abandoned," Brian joked.

Andy smiled, but then quickly turned serious, "Hey, listen…speaking of people we haven't talked to in a while… I have something to tell you."

Brian felt his spider-sense tingle. "Oh?"

"I had a buddy of mine, a detective in my precinct, track Bender down last year."

It was unexpected, but not unwelcome news. "Where is he?" Brian asked. "Do you know how he's doing?"

"Detroit," Andy replied, "And he's doing fairly well for himself if you can believe it. I guess he worked a bunch of odd jobs for a while until some carpenter took him under his wing and let him apprentice in his shop."

Brian took it all in slowly. He had almost given up hope that they would ever find out what had happened to John. "Good for him," he finally said. "Do you think you could give him my number? I'd love to talk to him again."

"You can talk to him tomorrow. I asked him to be in the wedding."

Brian stopped dead in his tracks; his spider-sense was setting off full-blown sirens in his head now.

"You don't think it's a good idea either?" Andy asked off the look on Brian's face.

"Who else—?"

"Allison."

"Right." He was almost afraid to ask, "And Claire?"

"She still doesn't know that I found him. I never quite knew how to bring it up."

Brian didn't like the idea of keeping secrets from his best friend, but for now, he supposed that he didn't have a choice. He sighed, and resumed walking. "What exactly did you tell John to convince him to come back to Shermer? Something tells me that he wasn't jumping at the chance to see Claire again."

"Well, no… he didn't agree to come until after I told him that Claire would be in New York on an assignment, and couldn't fly home in time for the wedding."

"Which isn't true."

"But he doesn't know that."

Brian shook his head in doubt. "I have a bad feeling about this, Andy. I think they split up for a good reason and I'm not so sure it's wise to try to push them back together."

"It'll be fine. Once they see each other again, they'll remember how in love they were."

"Somehow I doubt it."

Andy frowned. "Allison said that too."

Brian was curious about one thing, though. "Did John tell you why he left?"

Andy shook his head. "No, but I never came right out and asked him. We didn't really talk about the past too much. I didn't want to spook him. He danced around the subject a bit, though. I know he and Claire had an argument, and I think maybe they really did just get fed up with each other."

"Maybe," Brian replied, but he had his own theory about what had happened, pieced together from what Claire had told him, and from what she had left out. The way John had left had been oddly abrupt, and Brian suspected that something a lot worse than 'just an argument' had taken place. He also had a feeling that it wasn't just Claire who had been left hurting that night.

"All I know," Andy said, "is that they've both been miserable for the past six years. Claire's a workaholic, John fled the state, and neither one of them has been in a serious relationship since they broke it off. Even if they don't get back together, maybe they can at least work out their issues, so that they can both finally move on."

Now that was something Brian could agree with, even if he still had reservations about the way the reunion was going to occur. "I just hope that they don't ruin your big day."

"I know," Andy said, "Allison already threatened me with bodily harm if they do. And since I'm kind of attached to the body parts she threatened, I'm really hoping they'll keep it civil."

But Brian didn't know if that was possible.