Clare sat at lunch, slowly eating her sandwich which had come from her brown paper bag. She was saving a table for her, Adam, and Eli, but they hadn't arrived yet. She looked up and saw Fitz standing in the middle of the cafeteria holding his red plastic try, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. From the looks of it, he was searching for Bianca and Owen, but they were nowhere to be found.

As he looked at each table, Clare caught his eye and waved him over. His eyebrow rose in disbelief but she waved him over again.

Slowly he made his way over and sat down, earning some confused glances.

"Why did you want me to sit with you?" Fitz asked, taking a sip from his milk carton.

"Because," Clare laughed. "You're my friend," she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

…

"We should do something," Fitz said as he and Clare were walking back to her house after school.

"Like what?"

"I have an idea, but we would need a car to get there…Can we borrow your mom's?"

Clare gulped. She had never taken something from her parents without asking.

"Sure," she found herself saying.

When she reached her front door, she pushed it open slowly and glanced around. Her mother was upstairs getting ready for her the date that she had told Clare about that morning. She had met a man online and agreed to meet him tonight.

Clare glanced back at the front door towards Fitz, who gave her an encouraging smile. More confident, Clare straightened up, quickly slipped her mother's car keys out of her purse and ran out the door.

"Nice job," he said as she placed the keys in his hand. They started the car, praying Mrs. Edwards wouldn't hear or would be to busy to notice, and headed down the street.

"Where are we going?' Clare asked Fitz happily.

"It's a secret so close your eyes," he smirked. She frowned and shut her eyes, but excitement coursed though Clare as the car drove on and on.

After what seemed like forever, the car stopped.

"You can open your eyes now," Fitz said and she did.

In front of the parked car was a large concrete building with a sign that read, Jack's Rock Climbing Gym.

"Rock climbing?" Clare exclaimed loudly.

"Hey, don't knock it till you try it! It's fun, I swear. And I figured we could use some fun."

"I guess your right," she sighed and followed him into the building.

Clare looked at some posters of people scaling mountains as Fitz went up to the desk to pay.

He came over to her shortly after, exclaiming, "Let's go get our harnesses." Clare followed him into the climbing room. It was very large with climbing walls covering about every square foot. There were racks of complicated harnesses and Fitz went over and strapped one on in merely minutes.

"I don't know how to put one on…" Clare admitted sheepishly.

"No problem," he said, holding one out. "Step into the leg loops, yeah right there, now here, let me close it for you so you don't fall out," he joked and Clare blushed, noticing how close he was to her.

"Now come on, lets go to that wall," he said pointing with one hand, and taking hers with his other. Clare smiled. This Fitz reminded her of a little kid in Disney World.

"Hey Mark," the instructor said, glancing at Fitz out of the corner of his eye as he belayed a girl climbing up the wall.

"Hey Henry," Fitz said, and then he turned to Clare, "I used to come here a lot when I was younger so I know most of the staff."

"That's great," she smiled. It felt nice to know about one if Fitz's hobbies and that he would be willing to show her.

"This is my friend Clare," he said to Henry. "She's never climbed before."

"That's not a problem," he said as he lowered the girl to the ground since she had reached the top. Once on the ground, the girl untied the rope from her harness and scurried off to a different wall. "I would be happy to show her the ropes." He said. "Get it, ropes. Ha!" Henry laughed.

"How you tie in is like this," he grabbed the rope that he wasn't attached to. "Hold it at arms length, and twist it like this…" Clare watched fascinated. "See how it looks like an 'eight'? Well stick the end of the rope though this loop here," he said, pointing to a loop on his own harness. "Then retrace the 'eight' with the end piece of the rope you just put though the loop. After you tie that, you tie the backup knot."

Clare looked up him, "Um…I didn't catch half of that…"

"Oh, okay." Henry laughed. "Want me to just do it?"

Clare nodded and watched as he tied her in.

Next to her, Clare saw Fitz tie in with another instructor and by the time he had climbed all the way to the top and had gotten lowered to the ground, she hadn't even moved a step.

"Wow," she said. "That took you, what, 30 seconds?"

"29," he smirked and she playfully hit his arm.

"Your turn," Fitz said motioning to the wall. Clare took a deep breath, placed her hands on the rough, hard, plastic rocks, and pulled herself up. She looked down. She was barley a foot off the ground yet she still felt nervous. Slowly she climbed higher and higher, willing herself not to look down. But once halfway up, she did, and instantly regretted it.

"Oh goodness," she said, feeling dizzy and nauseous at the height.

"Don't worry, I've got you," Henry called trying to make her feel better. It didn't work.

"You can do it! Try grabbing the red one by your left hand." Fitz said.

Clare looked up at the red rock, and stretched, stretched, stretched. Her finger merely touched the edge when she slipped, a loud shriek exploding from her lungs as she expected to splat to the ground and be dead in an instant. Fortunatly Henry was doing his job well, so Clare sat floating in midair, being held only by the rope.

Henry slowly lowered her to the ground and Fitz wrapped her in a hug, "You did great!" he exclaimed.

"I am never doing that again, ever!" Clare said.

"Next time, you'll change your mind," Fitz said as the two exited the building and got in the car.

"Next time?" Clare squeaked. "No way is that ever happening."

"So none of it was fun?"

"I didn't say that…"

"So you had fun?" Fitz asked.

"Yeah, I guess I did."

Fitz stared into her deep, almost-endless blue eyes and he felt like his stomach was twisting in knots as he leaned forward and pressed his lips gently against hers for a few seconds.

Clare twisted her head away, looking down. "I can't," she said quietly.

"Oh…"

"I'm sorry."

They drove back to Clare's in silence, they walked into the house in silence, they parted at the top of the stairs in silence, and only when Clare got in her room and collapsed onto her bed did she scream into her pillow in frustration.