Disclaimer: I don't own Degrassi. If I did, there would be no need for this fanfiction because this absurd plotline never would have happened.

Hi everyone! Sorry for the long wait. I've been suffering from exhaustion for the better part of three months but unlike last year's bout of insomnia, it's for a good reason: I'm pregnant again! I keep hoping that my energy will pick up in the second trimester but so far it hasn't much. Plus writing this particular story is so damn depressing that it doesn't help much. I'm hoping I'm over the worst of it because I really want to get back to those last three chapters of Stay and to make a final decision over whether I have enough stamina to write the endgame fic I have outlined.

Special thanks go to AlbatrossTam14 for helping me rewrite the Drew part and to LiteraryLolita for letting me steal a plot point she came up with.

Chapter 3

Eli

When we pulled up in front of my house, I paid the cab driver and helped Clare out of the car. She didn't expressly need help – she kept reiterating that she was fine – but it was hard to believe her when she looked so fragile in a way she hadn't since last summer, during the worst of her chemotherapy treatments. She might not have been as physically weak, but emotionally it seemed like she was barely holding it together.

She let me lead her up the stairs but shrugged away as we entered my room and she curled up on the bed. Ordinarily I would have joined her but I felt this unspoken distance between us and sat in my desk chair instead. I was glad my room wasn't as much of a disaster as it usually was. I'd cleaned a bunch before leaving for NYU and I'd spent so little time here the last few months that it had remained largely as I'd left it.

I tried to remember the last time that Clare had been here and realized with some sadness that it was after we'd gone bungee jumping together. We'd returned home, energized with adrenaline and lust and we'd had sex for the second time that weekend. The first time at her house the night before had been passionate but tentative, as if we were getting comfortable with each other again, but the second was fast and hot and sexy; we'd barely closed the door before we were tearing each other's clothes off. I grimaced when I realized that act had about a 33% chance of being the reason we were here right now, and hoped Clare wasn't having the same memory.

She was silent but her eyes were open and I wasn't sure if she was trying to fall asleep or lost in thought. "When are you going back to school?" she asked softly, after a long period of quiet.

"The crack of dawn tomorrow," I said, frowning. I wanted to apologize for not being able to stay any longer, but I couldn't miss my Thursday night class. It was bad enough I'd missed two others, though fortunately my professors were understanding when I'd emailed them to let them know that my girlfriend who'd gone through chemotherapy over the summer had a medical issue that needed to be addressed right away. Aside from our relationship status, it was all technically the truth and I was lucky that they accepted my emailed assignments and suggested I get the notes I'd missed from another student. Lenore was in one of the classes, and though things had been awkward between us since Clare had interrupted our near-kiss, we'd agreed that we'd stay friends.

"How long's the bus ride?" she asked.

"Almost twelve hours," I said with a grimace, remembering the awful ride here.

"Glad I flew last time," she said.

I shrugged. I didn't even want to think about how long it would take me to pay off my credit card bill after the last time I flew to Toronto on about eight hours' notice. "Cece said she'd drive me back this time. It's only about nine hours driving."

"That's nice of her," Clare said.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, she said we haven't had enough mother-son bonding time lately."

Clare's eyes widened and I realized too late how insensitive my words were. "Clare," I began softly, but her face crumbled, her breath hitched and I realized she was crying.

"I really want to be a mother someday, you know," she sobbed softly.

"Clare," I said again, even more gently. I stood up from the desk chair and perched myself on the edge of the bed, still not touching her, but close enough that she could reach for me if she wanted to. "Of course you do…this doesn't mean you can't."

She turned away from me and didn't respond, though I could see the tears were still streaking down her cheek. "I mean, if there's only one good thing to come out of this, it's that you know you can get pregnant," I explained. Her head snapped back toward me and I hurried to explain. "I mean, that wasn't exactly guaranteed…after the chemo and all."

She winced, though this time she held my gaze. "It means I can conceive," she said wryly. "There's still no guarantee I can carry a child to term."

"Yeah, but that's the hardest part sometimes, right?"

Clare shrugged.

I looked down at my hands. I could still remember how Cece had met me at the front door after I'd flown home from New York to see Clare in the hospital; I'd come home for only a few minutes to drop off my luggage but Cece had stopped me before I could leave. She'd started ranting about Gray's Anatomy and Clare's eggs and how if she wanted me to fertilize them I had to do it and I'd just stared at her in shock until she'd explained that sometimes women would freeze eggs before undergoing chemotherapy and that they sometimes had better outcomes when they were fertilized before being frozen. I'd told her that if Clare asked me to, I would in a heartbeat, though I hadn't really considered what that would mean at the time. But Clare had never asked, and she'd started her treatments that very same day.

"I was surprised we never talked about that…back when you were in treatment," I said, realizing Clare didn't need to hear the whole story. "Possibly infertility or freezing eggs or whatever."

Clare bit her bottom lip. "My doctors mentioned it but they didn't really encourage me to take that option," she explained. "I think it was because they were treating Paula at the time and her cancer was so aggressive. They didn't want to wait weeks before starting chemo, and I figured I'd rather be alive than worry about procreating years before I was ready." She laughed darkly. "Look how well that worked out."

"I wasn't too worried," I said, though I was a bit distracted by a picture of Clare, Adam and I that Cece must have framed and put on my bookshelf while I was in New York. "I figured if I couldn't get you pregnant the old-fashioned way, we'd just adopt. It wouldn't really make a difference to me."

It wasn't until Clare let out another loud sob that I turned back to her. "What's wrong?" I asked, completely dumbfounded.

"I'm so stupid," she sobbed.

"You're not…" I began, reaching for her shoulder, but she brushed my hand away.

"I am," she insisted. "I spent this whole year thinking that you weren't there for me and that Drew was, and you're here telling me you were thinking about adopting children with me someday, and he's not even here right now. He abandoned me when I needed him most, and you're here…you've always been here for me."

As much as I was glad that Clare seemed to be thinking of me in a positive light once again, I knew she wasn't entirely right. "I'm always going to be there for you when it really matters, Clare," I said, pleased that when I reached for her hand, she allowed me to take it. "But the truth is, this year, I wasn't always there. I got wrapped up in NYU and New York City and film projects and I didn't even keep up with your phone calls and texts." And on one stupid occasion, Lenore, but I wasn't going to bring that up unless she did.

"You cancelled Skype chats, too," she said, her face full of pain at the memories.

I looked down at our linked hands. "Do you know why I wasn't answering your calls by the end?" She furrowed her eyebrows but waited for me to continue. "I felt like every time we talked, all I did was disappoint you. Telling you I couldn't come home or that I had to cut things short because we had a film shoot scheduled and we needed to get it in before the light shifted. In September, all of our phone calls were happy, and by March, all of them were sad."

"The only thing that disappointed me was you avoiding me," she claimed, but I knew it wasn't the entire truth. There were too many phone conversations that ended near tears or with a soft, forced, "It's okay, Eli. We can talk tomorrow."

"You know that's not true," I said, and she didn't disagree.

"Every time you blew me off, I just kept picturing what you were doing." Another tear streamed down her cheek. "And it always involved Lenore."

At least I didn't fuck Lenore, unlike you and Drew, I thought, but managed to keep from saying out loud. "I've told you a million times that she and I are just friends. Nothing happened since that one time. I never wanted her. It's always been you."

Clare shrugged dismissively, and I bit back a scowl. It wasn't like I was the only person who had screwed up our relationship. "Do you know where I was when you called me and asked if you could spend the night? I was working on my short film with Lenore, and it was a complete disaster. And she told me I was never going to be able to write the film the way it needed to be until I gave up on you." I winced at the memory. "She told me she was in love with me," I said, and Clare's expression mirrored my own.

"You told me you weren't with her," she accused, her lip quivering.

"I'm not," I said. "Because the phone rang, and the girl I'm in love with was at the other end."

Clare sighed. "I wish you hadn't told me this."

"Why not?"

"Because you're going back to NYU tomorrow, and all I'm going to do is worry that you're spending all your time with a girl who's in love with you. A beautiful girl who you have everything in common with, who you've already hooked up with."

I shook my head. "But don't you get it, Clare? I chose you. I could have had a girlfriend who lives down the hall from me, who shares my interests, who I could have a physical relationship with. Being with Lenore….it would be easy." Another sob escaped her lips and she covered her face with her hands. I leaned forward and gently pulled them away, holding her hands in mine, forcing her to meet my gaze. "But I would rather have had even the slightest bit of hope that you and I could be together than be in a relationship with someone who just isn't you."

The tiniest hint of a smile crossed her face before turning into a pout. "Long distance sucks," she said, and I couldn't help but laugh at her uncharacteristic word choice.

"I agree," I said. "I don't think either of us had any idea what we were in for."

She fell silent and something that had been bothering me for the vast majority of our long-distance relationship popped into my head. I didn't want to risk upsetting her further, but I knew I couldn't pretend that the entire dissolution of our relationship had been my fault.

"In some ways I think I had it easier," I began, trying to keep my tone neutral. "Being away was hard but there were so many new things to do, and boatloads of reading and films to watch and things. It wasn't that hard to adjust to our relationship being different because I had to. I had no choice."

"What do you mean?" she asked, her tone more confused than upset.

"I just think that because life for you in Toronto wasn't that much different than it had been, you thought things between us would stay exactly the same."

"That's an exaggeration," she scoffed.

"Okay, not exactly the same," I conceded. "But you may have had some unrealistic expectations of how the long-distance thing could work."

"I'm not sure I follow," she said dryly. I noticed she shifted away from me an inch or two on the bed, under the guise of getting more comfortable, and I hated the idea that I was pushing her away but at this point, there was no turning back.

"Every time you were free for ten minutes, you called me. And every time there was some sort of special event at school, you expected that I'd be there, even though I was in another country."

"I hoped you'd be there. I didn't expect…"

"Clare, you did…whenever I told you I had things going on I couldn't get out of, you were upset."

"I was only upset when you cancelled plans we'd already made," she insisted.

"You broke up with me because I couldn't get home on two days' notice for an event that wasn't even a dance. You didn't exactly have to bring a date to go," I reminder her.

"It wasn't just because of that," she said angrily.

"I know it wasn't," I said gently. "But you called me four times in two hours and left me angry voicemails, and I was in class at the time. My professor has a cell phone policy that if you even pull it out to check the time you fail for the semester. I couldn't have called you back even if I wanted to."

"Well, I'm sorry that my short term memory is still kind of shot and I don't have your class schedule memorized," she said sharply. "But it was more than your lack of phone punctuality that made me break up with you and you know it."

"I know," I said, a little more angrily than I had intended, so I repeated myself more gently. "I know." I sighed. "I'm just suggesting that there are things both of us will have to work on if we get back together."

Clare's eyes widened and she brought herself to a sitting position. "If?"

I shrugged and she gasped. "But I thought…after what you said in New York…and just now…I mean, you're here," she emphasized. "I thought you wanted to get back together."

"I did," I said. "But I'm not completely sure now."

"What changed?" she demanded. All traces of the frail Clare I had half-carried up to my room had disappeared. She looked like she was ready for a fight. "Is it because of this? Because you know this was the best thing for all of us."

"No, of course not." I looked away from her. "It's because you had sex with Drew."

"Are you kidding me?" Clare shrieked. "I told you it happened after we had broken up. You're the only one of us who actually cheated."

"After we had broken up?" I stood up and took a few steps back from the bed, feeling the anger I had tried to contain for the last day coursing through my body. "It was less than 24 hours after you dumped me over voicemail. We hadn't even talked about it yet."

"Well if you had answered your damn phone, maybe we would have."

I took a deep breath and forced myself to sit back down in my desk chair, facing Clare directly. "Look…if you were any other girl in the world, it wouldn't matter to me. I mean, I wouldn't be okay with it, but I could accept that it happened and move on from it."

"That's not fair," she said.

"Hell, if all you and Drew did was hook up, even if it was more than kissing, I could chalk it up to one stupid mistake because you were pissed at me and he was there….but that wasn't all it was. You had sex with him."

Clare grimaced. "But if I were any other girl, you'd be fine with it? You're holding me to an unfair standard."

"You're right, I am," I said sadly. "Because I know you. And I know just how meaningful sex is to you. And I know that's not something you ever would have done with a guy you didn't have feelings for." Her face fell, and I could see her eyes welling up once more. "And there's nothing you can say that will make me believe those feelings appeared in the 24 hours after you dumped me by phone."

"It was just a stupid crush," she admitted. "He was nice to me and he was there and you weren't. If things were working between you and me, I never would have fallen for him, and even if I did, I wouldn't have acted on it." She sighed. "I can't even begin to tell you how much I regret it…how much I regret everything."

"Were you in love with him?" I asked, my voice cracking. I wiped away a tear of my own.

She shook her head. "No…not even close," she said. "But I wanted it to be more than it was. I felt so rejected by you and it seemed like Drew wanted to be with me, and I'll admit it…I liked that Drew made me feel wanted. But it had nearly nothing to do with him and everything that happened as a result was a complete mistake."

I didn't know what to say. The idea of her liking Drew was nearly as painful as the thought of her sleeping with him. How many months did she spent flirting with him in the student council office? Maybe she waited until we were broken up to do something about it, but how much time did she spent thinking about kissing him even though we were still together?

Clare sounded desperate. "Look, I wish I could take this all back. But I can't. And I forgave you for hooking up with Lenore while we were still together, so I think you should be able to forgive me for what happened with Drew."

"It's not the same, Clare," I said, tears streaming down my face. "What happened with Lenore meant nothing to me. It was wrong and a betrayal and I never should have done it but I didn't want to be with her. I was lonely and she was there and I screwed up, but I didn't like Lenore as anything more than a friend. It would have been exactly the same for me if I had hooked up with J.J. instead," I said, trying and failing to lighten the mood. "You had serious feelings for Drew, while we were together." I sighed. "I know what I did was worse, but I feel just as betrayed as you did when I cheated."

We sat in silence for a few minutes before Clare gently said, "Eli," and I met her gaze. "I know there's nothing I can say that will make you forgive me. But I need you to know that what happened with Drew and me…that's the only reason that I can forgive you for what happened with Lenore. I know I said in October that I could get past it, but I couldn't. And I spent months being so sad, feeling rejected and worthless and like if you really loved me you never would have cheated." She let out another sob, "But the fact of that matter is that I was so in love with you and I still developed feelings for Drew. And I tried to push them out of my mind and it didn't work. And that's the only reason I can understand how you could be that in love with me and feel lonely enough to hook up with someone else."

She seemed to be waiting for a response but I didn't have one. I felt sick to my stomach thinking about how much we'd screwed up a relationship that had been so beautiful and supportive. We'd already been through so much already – so many mistakes, mostly mine – and gotten through them. The idea of letting go of Clare forever killed me, but I had no idea how we could move on from this. The problems in our relationship weren't going to disappear in the next few months and even once we were both in New York, two separate university schedules weren't going to leave us with unlimited time together. I knew that apartment in Brooklyn was out because there was no way we'd be ready to move in together by August no matter what repairs we'd come up with in the interim, and though 100 blocks was a hell of a lot closer than two different countries, we'd still have a lot to figure out.

Clare's shoulders sagged at my lack of response and she lay herself back down on the bed, pulling herself into fetal position, facing away from me. "Why don't I let you get some sleep?" I said gently, relieved to have an excuse to leave the room. "I'll be downstairs. You can text me when you wake up if you want some company or if you need a drink or something to eat."

"Okay," she said softly.

I had reached the door before I heard her call my name, so softly I nearly missed it. "Eli," she whispered. "I know who the father was."

I felt a pounding in my chest as I turned back to look at her. She was still facing away from me. "They had to do an ultrasound," she explained. "To see how far along I was. Because if I was under seven weeks, they could do it medicinally but if it was longer, it had to be surgical. I didn't look at the screen during the ultrasound, but I know how they performed the procedure."

The fact that she'd waited until I was about to leave the room before bringing this up and the fact that she couldn't look me in the eyes made me certain she was about to tell me that Drew was the father. And though I'd always known that was a possibility, I knew I couldn't hear her say those words. And I couldn't exactly ask her to only tell me if I was the father, because if she didn't, her silence would equal a confirmation.

Then again, I didn't know much about abortions but she did seem a bit loopy as if she had been under some type of anesthesia and I was pretty sure the medicinal abortion only involved taking a pill. So it was still possible that it was mine.

But the chance that it wasn't was too much for me to deal with.

"Don't tell me," I said. "Or Drew. It doesn't matter who the father was. We don't need to know."

"Are you sure?" she asked, looking over her shoulder to glance at me.

"I'm sure."

"Okay," she said softly. When she didn't say anything else, I turned off the light to help her sleep and pulled the door shut gently behind me.

I had some reading to do for school but there was no way I was going to be able to concentrate so I randomly flipped through the channels on the living room TV. I eventually settled on a Friends rerun even though I hated the show, because I didn't even have the energy to find something better.

Maybe an hour later my doorbell rang, and I jumped at the sound. My parents were both working late and no one should have really known I was back in Toronto – not like people other than Clare or Adam had ever showed up on my doorstep unannounced.

The last person I would have expected to see was Drew Torres.

He was dressed in a suit for some ridiculous reason – though I supposed Clare often overdressed for school by my standards so maybe that was some weird student council thing – and carrying a bouquet of white roses. "For me? You shouldn't have," I said before I could contain myself. It just showed how little he knew Clare anyway. She thought roses were boring – particularly white ones since they quickly started yellowing and rotting. I didn't buy her flowers very often – books were my gift of choice to give and hers to receive – but when I did, they were always bright and colourful.

Drew frowned. "I'm here to see Clare." I toyed with telling him she wasn't here and he must have sensed that because he immediately added. "She texted me last night. Told me she'd be here."

"You're too late," I said. "We went to the hospital this morning. You can't talk her out of it. It's over."

He shook his head in exasperation. "I know. That's not why I'm here. I just want to apologize to her. I was an asshole yesterday and I should have been here this morning and I'm sorry."

His apology seemed genuine but I still wanted to punch him. And I definitely didn't want him to talk to Clare because the idiot seemed to have some sort of charm that made everyone forgive him when he did something stupid, and I didn't want Clare falling for him again after how much he'd hurt her.

"She's asleep," I said brusquely. "She had a rough day. I'm not going to wake her up for you."

Drew nodded though he looked disappointed. "Can you give her these?" He handed me the flowers and pulled an envelope out from his suit pocket. "I wasn't sure if she'd want to see me so I wrote her a letter just in case."

I took it begrudgingly. I expected him to walk away but he stopped and looked straight at me. "How is she?"

"She's okay," I confirmed. "The doctor said there weren't any complications. She's a little tired and a little emotional, but she'll be fine."

"Thanks for being there with her," he said gruffly.

To my surprise, he held out his hand, and I shifted the flowers in my arms to shake his. He nodded and turned to leave. "Hey Drew," I said. "If she wants to talk to you when she wakes up, I'll have her text you."

He nodded in appreciation and headed back to the van. I went inside, closing the door behind me quietly so I wouldn't wake up Clare. I double checked my phone but she hadn't texted yet, so I took my spot on the couch, leaving the flowers and card on the cocktail table in front of me. I kept glancing at them, wondering what Drew's letter said.

"Fuck it."

I ripped open the envelope to read it.

Dear Clare,

I'm sorry. I feel like I've done nothing else this year but apologize to people since everything I do goes wrong. But I never meant it as much as I do now. Please believe me, I'm so sorry for everything.

I'm sorry I slept with you so fast and for how I acted when I saw you were still in love with Eli.

And I'm really sorry I was such an asshole to you yesterday and for not being there today. You needed someone to be there for you, and I let you down. I do that all the time. I don't think I've been with someone I haven't failed and disappointed and hurt. And now I have to add you to the list when you were the only person who stuck by me all year.

I get that you weren't ready to have a kid. I'm not either. I know that. And even if we were older, I'm not the guy you want to start a family with. I totally get that.

I know you are going to have a great future. Columbia, a great reporter job, and a family when your ready for it. Maybe it'll work out for you and Eli will be part of that. I just want you to be happy.

I hope your okay now. I hope you forgive me.

Drew

I felt like even more of an asshole for reading the note after that. I knew even if the entire letter had been Drew professing his love for Clare, I wouldn't have hidden it from her, but I should have realized that wasn't what he wanted. He was just a screwed up guy who got dragged into a messed up situation, just like me. And he wanted Clare to have the same happy future I'd always wanted for her.

No matter how many doubts were in my head about Clare and whether we could ever manage to make our relationship work for more than a few months at a time, the truth was that when I pictured my future, it always involved her. I wanted to be the guy she came home to after her classes were done for the day, who cooked her spaghetti and rubbed her shoulders when she was stressed over a major deadline. I wanted to show her all the movies I needed to watch for class and have her be the first reader for every script I wrote. I wanted to wish her good luck when she left in the morning for her first newspaper job and kiss her hello every night when she came home.

And yes, someday I wanted to bring her to the hospital and a few days later, bring home Clare and a beautiful, healthy child.

I went to the kitchen and found a vase under the sink for the flowers. I brought the bouquet and Drew's letter – sans envelope – upstairs and placed them on my desk. Then I lay down next to Clare and put my arm around her, pleased that she'd left me enough room to spoon up behind her. She stirred and moved closer to me, letting me hold her.

"I love you, Clare," I whispered faintly into her curls. "We'll find a way to make this work. I promise."