Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in the breakfast club
Clair had been sitting in the waiting room at the hospital for nearly half an hour. Every so often a doctor would pass and ask if she needed something, to which she would sheepishly reply no, watching as they gave her a moment's awkward glare before continuing on her rounds. They probably thought she was insane; sitting around in the waiting room in the middle of visitation hours, instead of hanging by a loved one's side. It was probably one of the first times she'd done something to bring negative attention to herself, not counting walking through the halls of school while holding hands with John. That wasn't to say she particularly liked this negative attention, but to relieve herself of it, would mean taking action, which she was still unable to do.
John was a fucking idiot, and would probably always do things to piss her off, always upping his game, but she was completely baffled in admitting to herself that she managed to find it possible to love him so much that she was still worried sick about him. Every moment she spent in class, she tuned out the teacher and thought of him. Whether or not the doctors were giving adequate attention to him, whether he was getting visitors, or just sitting alone all day, whether he was finally doing what the doctors told, or if he was still doing stupid shit to prevent any of his injuries from healing properly. She wondered if his miraculous healing was still the case, or if he'd suddenly taken a turn for the worst. On top of all that, thanks to recent antics, she had to add worrying about him trying to run away to the list, and for that, she was pissed.
Honestly, John had done a lot of stupid shit in his life, hell, John Bender was the epiphany of stupid behavior, but just deciding to up and leave the hospital in a barely stable state, during a snow storm, with nowhere to go? It was a miracle he hadn't managed to kill himself in the time he was missing, whether it be from his critical injuries or hyperthermia. It was like he was trying to end up dead, like he was just going to leave everyone with only the memory of the spark of chaos, and yet, chystal clear logic that had brought rebellious fun into their lives. So what did it mean? That above all, he didn't care about any of them? That they were just an accepted part of his life, until one of his stupid actions finally ended it, and left them all with heartache? What was she? Someone to hold hands with, to flirt with, until he decided that everything in Shermer was so unbearable that he could just leave it all in a heartbeat and start over, even risking his life to do so?
Unfortunately, as mad as she was for suddenly being brought to realization that she wasn't as important to John as she thought, or worse yet, that he was constantly jeopardizing his health so that it seemed the battle for his life wasn't even halfway over, Clair really did love him. She felt stupid admitting it. She remembered watching her friends get all giddy over guy after guy, and had sworn she'd never become one of the idiots who was certain they were in love after only a couple months worth of relationship, but she really did. He wasn't like other guys she'd dated. He challenged her, made her stomach knot with worry, made her body paralyzed whenever his hand even gently brushed across it, and generally just had a light to him that she couldn't even imagine disappearing. A light that had somehow made things that seemed important, become so stupid, things that seemed foggy, seam so clear. She genuinely loved him, and she couldn't let someone she loved sit in the hospital alone, even if he didn't love her in the same way, and was willing to flee without her when she got the first chance.
So Clair took a deep breath and stood from the beige waiting room couch from circa 1950 (a decorative mistake that she couldn't help but notice). She needed to be there for him, but she wasn't going to do it without giving him a piece of her mind. She was a stronger version of herself, coincidentally, thanks to him, and she wasn't going to wait around hoping he didn't do something ignorant to kill himself anymore. If he was too fucking stubborn to listen to what the doctors were telling him, then she was going to make him.
As Clair got closer to John's room, she started to hear a tune that was faint, but undeniably the song "I've got you babe" by Sonny and Cher. It was sung in an obnoxious, squeaky voice that was boarder-line yelling and somehow managed to hit every key wrong. It was the voice of someone who was trying to fail at singing a song that already required no talent to sing, the voice of someone who didn't care that they were in the intensive care unit and that there were critically injured people trying to sleep, because being a complete asshole was too irresistible to this voice to ignore any temptations of being a pain in the ass. It was the voice of someone with a mind so fucked up they could even think about pulling such bullshit. It was the voice of John Bender.
Clair cocked her head to the left and stood paralyzed in disbelief for a moment before following the earsplitting tune as fast as she possibly could in her designer heeled boots. It would figure that the bizarre antics happening at the Shermer hospital that, of course, would have everyone talking, was once again a cause of her boyfriend's behavior. First he put the whole hospital under lock down, then he broke out into full on 1960's hippie music so loudly that it could be heard that the very top of the unit. She half considered wearing a hat and tinted glasses every time she went to visit him, just so nobody would be able to recognize her and link any of the weird happenings to her or her reputation.
Clair stood in the doorway of John's room in disbelief as she watched the man she had just admitted to loving, with both his hands bond to either side of the bed, head tilted backwards, singing with all the heart he had left after his tiring recovery, off pitch, and getting seventy percent of the lyrics wrong. Not that he seemed to notice. He sung as if he were Sonny himself, so into making the song as audible as possible with short breaths that he didn't even realize Clair was standing a foot away from him, completely stunned that he could come up with such a fucking stupid prank or whatever it was to him, and that this was the man she thought about marrying every night before she went to sleep. She loudly cleared her throat, trying her hardest to hide her shock in order to look as pissed off as effectively possible.
"Oh, hi Clair." John said before opening his mouth to sing again. He stopped however, before he could croak out any of the words, as Clair shouted his name, her eyes slightly wet, her cheeks almost tomato red, and her body slightly shaking with rage. In retrospect, his "clever and witty" plan to annoy the doctors into submission didn't seem so "clever and witty". He had, of course, assumed that once Clair found out he'd pulled this kind of shit, she would yell at him, call him immature, even tell him that she couldn't stand him and would then storm off to the cafeteria before returning in about an hour to sit at the foot of his bed to bitch about the girl's at school she didn't like while he pretended to listen. It was kind of their thing. However, this was different, and since he didn't think loudly rehearsing the pop love songs of the sixties was enough to send her to her boiling point, he figured something else had to be the problem.
"What?" He asked, his eyebrows slanted in annoyed confusion. He'd been practically comatose since his father beat the living fuck out of him, and considering this was the first time she'd actually conversed with him since then, he figured he couldn't have said something unfavorable about her weight or wardrobe under the influence of the heavy pain meds he was given, which, while he had to admit were probably the best part of his current situation, were not so good that he would just forget a visit with Clair. So then what could she possibly be so pissed about? She knew he was an asshole, she knew he was bound to spend ninety percent of his time at the hospital making the doctors lives miserable, after all, he wasn't that interested in the television and there wasn't much else he could do, so why did she look so shocked.
"What the hell do you think? God, this is completely insane! You know, I can't even believe you, why John, why can't you just do what the doctors want so you can get better? Tell me!" Clair shouted, frustrated tears no forming in the grooves of her tear-ducts. She legitimately missed when he was asleep ninety-five percent of the day, and she hated herself for it. At least, when he was unconscious, he put up no resistance. He didn't pull any of his stupid ass games and he was actually improving to the point where she honestly thought he would make a full recovery and be out of the hospital within a month. He was making himself worse, and the worst of it all was that he really didn't seem to care.
"They fucking restrained me." John explained, looking down at his binds as he spoke before finally looking up at her through a cocked head. None of the medical staff had listened to his number of complaints about the restraints, and ignored him when he promised to be a good boy and stay put like he was supposed to if they freed his hands, so he had resorted to the one thing he did best: being a pain in the ass. He had been singing all morning, and was confident that enough hospital guests and family members had complained about the noise to the point he was about to be given what he wanted, had Clair walked in.
"You tried to run away!" Clair reminded, completely flabbergasted that he would pull such a fucking stupid stunt over, what, a few days at the best of losing the function of his hands? Something he wouldn't even have noticed had he been resting like he was supposed to be doing. This was how he was going to show the doctors that they could trust him enough to do what he was supposed to do and to stay in his bed without the reinforcement of arm restraints as a kind of security measure to make sure his ass stayed put?
"And I came back." John said, suddenly feeling more light headed than usual. In fact, since his escape from the hospital grounds, he'd been feeling fifty percent more nauseous, short of breath, and dizzy. He pulled his hand up as far as his restraints would allow him, and rested his head in his palm, pinching his the bridge of his nose in between his eyes and trying hard to get his heart back to a what seemed like a normal rhythm, if he could even remember what that was anymore.
"That doesn't matter! You ran away! Do you know what could have happened to you? You could have died! And you don't even care. You know, it's like you don't even stop to think about all of us who love you. If you don't want to get better then I can't stop you but if you don't care then I don't see why we should," Clair snapped, choking back her tears before looking back up at him, "are you okay?" She asked, suddenly sympathetic as she cautiously walked closer. She froze when he shouted that he was fine, his irritation only proof that he wasn't, before continuing to his bedside and slowly lifting his head up.
"You are not fine, you're as white as a ghost." She answered, shaking her head and pressing the button to summon the nurse. Once again, he had managed to do something irrationally stupid and it had lead to further complications in his condition. The worst of it was she couldn't even be mad at him for making himself even more sick than he was, because she was the only one who was really there for moral support for him. Of course, everyone else tried but Allison's "people skills" only managed to slightly creep everyone out, while Andrew was mostly silent in his awkwardness, and seeing since John wasn't a big fan of either Nina or Brian, that left only Clair.
"If I say I'm fine, I'm fine." John said, giving a short threatening glare before clutching his chest and groaning. He grabbed his restraints tightly, wheezing as he swallowed gulps of air, his skin turning from a powdery white to a light blue, and yet somehow, through all of this, John was most concerned with the fact that this problem had to arise with Clair in the room. He'd had been feeling even more so under the weather than usual, but he assumed he had probably gotten the flu or something from sitting out in the snow for what was probably at least an hour.
Clair immediately darted to the door, practically tripping on the wiring of all the machines in the room, but regaining somewhat of a poster. She yelled for help and immediately the room was filled with men and women in white lab coats and scrubs. In only a minute, Clair found herself in the hallway, behind a locked door frantically trying to figure out what was going on.
"He's got pneumonia. It's a common complication of trauma patients, so there's no way to tell how exactly he ended up with it, but it's most likely that he contracted it from another patient when he was trying to escape. He probably had to go down a couple halls before he found one with an elevator." Nurse "anal fist", as John referred to him as, explained, noting the grinding of Clair's teeth and the furious blaze in her eyes, "this is probably a lot harder on him than he's letting show sweetheart. We get this a lot with abuse cases, they're so used to dealing with fear by acting out, that they put up resistance to all the medical care, and while John seems to be putting up extra resistance to the point that three other nurses have already put in their two weeks, and I really wish I were joking doll, I see it as a good thing. When these kids stop acting out, that's usually when they've given up. They usually don't last that long after that. However, due to the fact that his behavior is seriously dragging down his recovery, and because if we lose anymore nurses we'll be short staffed, the doctors have decided that he's not allowed to have any visitors for a week. Hopefully, if he doesn't feel he needs to put on some kind of show for people, he'll start making progress again. They're reintubating him in an hour. I talked them into letting you say goodbye before the procedure. Just remember what I told you." he said before carrying on with his rounds.
Clair took a deep breath, closing her eyes and holding the air in as if trying to stall. She felt ashamed of herself; she'd been so preoccupied blaming herself, worrying about what she was to him, and just being pissed at him for treating the whole situation like an annoying inconvenience, always seeming to take every bit of his condition lightly, that she hadn't even put into consideration how he felt. It had to have been surreal. The awkwardness, the frustration, the fear he would never dare express, whenever he felt any of those things, he pulled a prank on Vernon or was an ass to everyone around, making it impossible for them to pity anyone other than themselves. How had she missed him resorting to this particular defense mechanism when the awkwardness was enough to make him ignore them all, when the frustration had heightened ten folds, and when every second was either filled with fear of his uncertain future, or fear of even having a future?
Clair released the air, exhaling and seeming to make the scene that had paused continue on it's natural routine. She pushed off of the wall she was leaning on and slowly paced inside John's room, sheepishly asking for a moment alone with her boyfriend before finally gazing at him. He looked just as exhausted as he had the night the club had found him at the shop, and made no effort in looking over at her aside from slowly moving his eyes to the corner of their sockets. Though it was apparent that none of the doctors thought it wise to tell John what was going on, through the way the contemplated Clair's question as if they were afraid she'd reveal something to him and lead to more in-cooperation from their patient, she could tell John knew. They'd wasted no time putting a breathing mask on him, and had all discussed the next procedure in hushed voices. They were going to stick another fucking tube down his throat.
After exchanging looks to one another, as if possessing some supernatural ability to mentally communicate with one another, before coming to the unanimous yet silent decision to vacate the room. Once alone, Clair and John shared uneasy looks, before Clair finally cleared her throat and made the best attempt at explaining what the nurse had told her while sounding sophisticated and calm, just like she'd heard the doctors manage, in hopes that if she made it seem like no big deal, John would believe it wasn't and wouldn't feel the need to mask the heart thudding uncertainty that had lead to his notorious behavior throughout the hospital.
"No." John said sternly, his voice barely making it through the oxygen mask yet still maintaining power to it. While he assumed they would eventually reintubate him, and was considerably shocked that they hadn't already, considering his breathing hadn't been just below satisfactory the whole time he'd free of the binding tube that he'd already had the displeasure of having crammed down his esophagus, he never could have imagined he'd be punished with a week of no visitors. While he would never admit it to anyone, his crew being there was possibly the only the reason he fought everyday to make improvements in his health, minus, of course, a few stupid stunts that had sent him backwards. Had they not been there to force him to reinforce his "criminal" persona, to make him feel he had to seem tough and as strong as ever in front of them, then there would have been nothing to stop him from just giving in to his body's temptation to just shut down. It wasn't like he had any future to live for anymore, and the pain in all parts of his body, still as intense as the night it happened, seemed like it would never cease.
"Please don't do this. We'll be back in a week to see you and it's not like you'll be awake for most of the time anyways. I mean, they're going to sedate you, right?" She asked, sighing when she got John's complimentary "what are you smoking?" glare in return. It didn't matter that he wasn't going to be conscious, he fucking needed them. All his life people had constantly reminded him that he was alone, that with what he thought was the exception of Mark, nobody would care if he disappeared off the face of the planet, and with Mark not being at his side when he needed him the most, he realized he had literally been alone his whole miserable life, until he met the club, of course, and now they were just going to disappear for a whole week? Leave him inside the damned hospital room in the silence of his own solitude suffering?
"John, I need you to listen to me, okay," Clair asked, a certain boldness revealed in her shaky voice that had rarely poked its head before, "we all need you to get better. It is going to be really hard on all of us not to be allowed to come see you, but you made the whole world so different, like, I don't even know. Like things don't need to be such a struggle anymore, and if you go away, that whole world goes too, and none of us can go back to the way things were. We need you to get better. Will you please just do what the doctors say and get better?" Clair asked, tears strolling down her cheeks. She silently prayed that if she made him realize they needed the life that only he could provide for them, that once he was gone, the world would turn into a colorless act, that maybe he'd realize he wasn't alone, even when nobody was there.
"No." John said again, but this time with a charming and playful smile. Still, while this smile could have fooled anyone else, including Nina, Clair was suddenly able to see through it. Even though he was conscious, John Bender hadn't woken up from the accident yet. It was as if another entity had taken over his body, putting on the mask of a criminal and saying all the things it thought the John Bender before it would have said, and Clair wondered as she starred at the mimed smile if time would make everything okay enough for the real John to come back, or if the cocky, naturally sarcastic, charming John had died the night he'd been admitted into the hospital.
"My period is three weeks late." Allison stated, blankly, as she watched Andrew slurp down his fifth bowl of soup. She did a quick glance at the waitress, who was glarring over while whispering in her manager's ear. She had a feeling her boyfriend had just become the initial cause of "bottomless soup bowl Wednesday" being canceled at Best Pals diner, just like he'd single handedly put a stop to the endless refills at the Slush-hut. The boy ate more than a room full of pregnant women and their pet cow.
"Didn't you promise to keep your woman issues to yourself? At least when I'm eating." Andrew said, his disgust in woman's health actually making him lose his appetite for a moment, before he managed to shrug it off and take another whopping slurp of his soup. After all, if he could put up with the image of Larry Lester's werewolf ass in the back of his mind, along with personal disgust in what he'd done to those fuzz-cheeks, he could shake off anything Allison had to say about her body. Especially on bottomless soup bowl Wednesdays.
"It means I might be pregnant, Andrew." Allison dryly explained, saying his name with a particularly cold hearted sting to it. She didn't mean to be so frustrated with him, but sometimes his dumb jock cliche made her wonder how he was even academically eligible for sports at all. Not to mention, as wrong as she knew it was, if she was pregnant, she was holding him fully accountable. She had never really been particularly interested in sex, especially since it would require her being vulnerable and completely open with another human being, but he had swayed her decision by telling her he loved her, and now, it was very possible she had a child growing inside of her. She had finally managed to fit in with society, to have friends and hang out and do what normal teenagers did instead of just watching from the outside, imagining what it was like to belong, and in she was faced with the possibility of her new life going right back to the way it was. Worse, in fact, because before when she was invisible, at least she didn't have to worry much about people talking behind her back. No attention was definitely better than the negative attention of a swollen stomach the size of a whale and everyone else's ridicule.
Andrew's appetite was suddenly lost, this time for real. How was this even possible? They had only done it once, he couldn't have gotten her pregnant from only one night, it was too fucking unreal. What would his father think? Everything bit of respect Andrew had worked his whole life just to gain from his old man would be gone. His mother would probably go into some sort of nervous breakdown, and his image at Shermer High would be totally blown. And the club? Clair and Brian were definately the people to look down at a situation like his, and John would probably find it so amusing that he would just abandon all jock-jokes to focus more on "stupid teenaged dad" jokes. And Allison? What exactly did she want from him? For him to help her raise a child? To just forget being a teenager to become a family with her?
"It's been late before, a lot of times actually, but from a medical standpoint, it could be more than just a coincidence. I wanted to tell you before I found out for sure because I think you should have just as much time to think about things as I do. So you can decide what to do." Allison finally explained, changing her mood when she noticed the panic she'd sent over Andrew. Honestly, the possibility of it just being another case of irregular menstrual cycle was more plausible than her being pregnant, considering she'd lost five pounds and the fact that her period was never one time, but the slightest chance still made her hopelessly paranoid. She was probably making mountains out of mounds, but if there was any chance her worst fear was right, she didn't feel it right to hide from Andrew.
"What do you mean decide what to do? What is that, like a trap or something? How am I supposed to answer?" Andrew demanded, half in shock and half in genuine anger. He hated when girls played mind games. They always asked questions or made statements that had one specific expected response, but instead of even giving a hint as to what that response was, they would insist that the man come up with it all on his own, and if he didn't, all hell broke loose. It was like they purposely wanted to cause relationship drama by making the guy feel like an idiot because his response was "the wrong answer".
"You're not supposed to answer any specific way, Andy. Like I said, I told you so you'd have just as much time to decide what you're going to do as I will, just in case it is worst case scenario." Allison explained, starting to get annoyed. She had thought that with announcing to his dad that he was no longer going to live up to his expectations, that he was going to practice when he wanted and on his terms and that he wasn't going to tolerate his obsessive attitude with winning all the time anymore, that he had truly changed for good, but it was like his new-found balls had been detached when John was submitted into the hospital, and why wouldn't it? Andrew had grown a pair after watching how easily John was able to defy authority, but considering his disrespect for all elders had finally caught up to the criminal and almost killed him, Andrew was suddenly unsure. If he continued to idolize the way John thought for himself, the way he did whatever he wanted whenever, what was stopping him from fucking up his own life? Or worse, in this case, considering Allison and a child were involved?
"No! Tell me what you want me to do!" Andrew demanded, flamboyantly throwing his hands in the air and almost knocking down his coca-cola in the process. Allison was smarter, emotionally stronger, and for the most part, seemed calm about the situation, so why couldn't she just tell him what the best lead of action would be? Was he supposed to give up all his dreams and make an effort to grow up so he could raise a child before he was finished being one himself, or was he supposed to send her money, and call that it? After all, the thing all members of the breakfast club had in common is that their parents seriously fucked them up, and who was to say Andrew was any different from his own father? What if he ended up pushing his child to be the image of himself in school, or pushing him to succeed instead of just accepting who he was? What if he unintentionally ignored the kid, or only paid attention to it in order to use it as a device to get back at Allison when he was pissed at her? Most stomach churning of all, what if the stress piled up, layer after layer, until one day he lashed out and released his anger on the kid? All these things were unspeakable, but as Allison had once stated, "when you grow up, your heart dies" and having a child was like owning a one way ticket into adulthood.
"I don't want you to do anything, Andrew, just forget it." Allison said, gathering her things and lifting herself up. If Andrew wasn't even going to take into consideration what he was going to do before resorting to asking her for the answers, she wasn't going to look to him to help her raise a child if she even was pregnant. If she was going to be stuck taking care of a child through one stupid choice, then that was inevitable, after all, she wasn't about to stick her kid into a foster home after the whole system failed for herself, but she wasn't going to let the same stupid choice stick her taking care of two children. She wasn't going to make all the adult decisions for her boyfriend.
"No, you brought it up! Now I wanna know right now what you want from me and we're not leaving here until you tell me!" Andrew shouted as he shot up in his seat. All around them, people had stopped eating their meals and had frozen in stillness in order to blend in with the diner decor, as if any sudden movements and the couple would decide to have the conversation in a more private setting, and everyone else would miss out on the drama. Watching the two argue was probably the most entertaining part of their day, considering it was Shermer and the sudden snow had made the reception for all televisions to come out fuzzy. With Andrew and Allison, they didn't even have to get up and adjust the antenna.
"Fuck. You." Allison said dryly, her cheeks flustered and she grinded her jaw and spun around, leaving the diner and trying to hide the tears forming over her eyes.
a/n: I finally got a new laptop! This chapter was extra long as compensation for how long it took to update. New drama coming up which will make for more interesting chapters :)
ghostwriter: i'm glad you liked it :) thanks you for the review!
helinahandcart: haha thank you for your review and your wednesday adams smile :) my laptop is better now, seeing as i got a new one, but my thumb is still healing...but at least now i can continue to update!
haleboppers: awee that's one of the most incredibly awesome (for lack of better words: it's six am) reviews i've ever gotten! thank you so much :)
pennyforyourthoughts: then it's settled, i must go to the ocean :) thank you for the review, i'm glad you liked the last chapter!