AN: Hey hi, welcome to chapter eleven! It's taken me a long time to get this far, and I'm pretty sure the original edition of this story had gotten to about thirteen chapters before my friend and I had gotten a bit stumped with ideas for where to head. If you read the original story, which I wrote in the description, you can tell I've gone in a bit of a different direction with this fic. But I like where I'm headed and I definitely know where I'm doing now, and don't have plans for another hiatus. This chapter's a bit of a "filler chapter" (even though i hate that term) in a way. Basically, what I mean is this one has a lot of story and not a lot of dialogue going on.
Disclaimer: I do not own Degrassi, I only own this idea.
Chapter Eleven: The Multiple Meanings of Family
It's all so different when you're telling people who you've been both close with and only acquaintances with something so personal. For Clare that's how it feels going through the story with Spinner and Emma for a second time that night. While she's known Spinner and Emma longer than the adults at the table, she's known Mr. Simpson more socially and academically as of late. Knowing Spinner over the years previously came down to knowing her sister's boyfriends, so it feels like she's repeating it all to someone who she used to know.
On the other hand, it feels like she's telling people who she can trust now. She's known she can trust Simpson, and his wife as an extension, since she's been at Degrassi. Simpson never gave her a reason not to trust him. Back when The Shep was principal, Clare felt like Mr. Simpson was always on her side. Plus, she'd known him, heard of him, from her sister and her friends over the years beforehand. Now that he's the principal, she still feels that way, but it feels weird knowing him outside of school and keeping in mind that he's still her principal too.
"Wait, you're pregnant?" Emma asks, looking up from the dinner her mother and step-father have put on the table after Clare's explained everything to them. She's looking at her parents and she notices that they're not shocked to hear this. They must have been told before now. Emma turns to look at her husband, who's looking elsewhere. "Spin, baby, don't tell me you knew too."
Spinner and Clare's heads both turn at the comment Emma's made.
Clare's confusion is clear as she looks over at Spinner, but he's looking sheepishly back at her, shrugging his shoulders. "Spinner!" Clare gasps.
"I told you I was coming to check on you and your friends at Above the Dot." Spinner explains, picking up his fork and poking at the food on his plate as he shrugs his shoulders again. "I didn't come in when I heard what you were talking about, but I did hear what you were talking about."
"Oh my god." Clare covers her face with her hands and shakes her head, sighing. "Of course. God."
"And you didn't tell me?" Emma asks, looking at Spinner, before making a face and looking over at Clare and sighing. "I mean...not that he should tell me something about you. It's your story to tell, obviously." Emma waves her hand as she explains her words, feeling like she's back in junior high. Like the gossip mill is at it all over again, but she looks at Spinner and raises her eyebrows at him.
"You just said it yourself, Ems, it's none of our business." Spinner answers, looking at his wife and making a face as he continues talking. "Clare didn't seem like she wanted anybody to know, so I pretended like I didn't and figured if she wanted me to know she'd come and tell me."
"Thanks, Spinner." Clare says with a sigh, looking up finally. She knows everything is right, and she's glad that Spinner pretended like he didn't know. But she also wishes that he'd told her he'd overheard the conversation. It would have allowed a lot less stress on her, but honestly, it's good to get it all out now.
"Well, I think it's safe to say that we're all here if you need anything, Clare." Christine comments with a soft smile, nodding her head as she looks around the kitchen table.
"Of course, Clare. And I can help with whatever you might need with school. When it comes to telling teachers, doctors appointments, keeping your grades up." Archie adds with a nod of his head.
Clare's relief is evident in her posture as she relaxes with the comments that they've just said. Her shoulders have relaxed and she blinks as she looks between them, feeling like the two of them are helping her more than she could have asked just by expressing an offer to help.
"Yeah, and I know Darcy's away, so if you need to talk to someone in a big sister type way you can come to me." Emma offers as well with a nod and a smile. "Spin and I are officially back in town, and sticking around."
"Thank you. I want to tell Darcy, you know? But she's gone and telling her over an email feels impersonal." Clare comments with a sigh, looking down at the plate with a hum and moving food around on her plate. "She found out about the divorce through emails and finding out about my being pregnant through emails...feels wrong. But I can't call her, I don't think. I asked in the last email if we could maybe video chat, because she mentioned she might actually be able to come home sometime soon. And I don't want her to come home and risk her coming home when I'm already super pregnant and finding out like that."
"I'm sure you'll be able to tell her soon."
The rest of dinner is easy, Clare feels like she's part of the family with every bit of the conversation. Finally, the spotlight is off of her, and moved on to everybody else. The conversation flows, and Clare can sense that she's not intruding. She truly feels welcome and happy to be there while they're all chatting and eating over dinner. It's comforting, feeling like part of the family. She's gotten that with the Torres family as well, and with the Bhandari's, and to be able to have it with the Simpson-Nelson household too is surreal.
It's something Clare never expected. She's already writing a letter in her head to Darcy to tell her about eating dinner with Emma, Spinner, and Emma's parents. She can imagine the look on Darcy's face too, which makes it all the more priceless.
With Clare's family life feeling like it's ripped at the seems, like she doesn't know which way is up and if she'll ever be able to repair the relationships she's had with...frankly with any of her family members, it's nice to feel like she's at home with her friends families. Like she has a home with the families she knows care for her even when she's going through tough times. So, she eats with the family, commenting and laughing, all with a smile on her face because she's grateful to feel like she even belongs there just a little bit.
However, getting a ride home from Spinner and Emma had been the easiest part of the night, at least it would have been until they insist upon going with her to the door and introducing themselves to the Torres family. It makes her nervous to introduce them officially, she's sure that Spinner at least may have seen Drew and Adam around because of working at the Dot again lately, but it doesn't ease the weirdness of it all.
It's as if she's introducing two totally different sides of her family to each other to bring them together. It's unlike anything she's experienced before, unlike anything she expected.
Hearing Spinner introducing himself as Gavin to somebody is certainly off putting. While Clare knows that's his name, it's never been what she's called him. She's always called him Spinner, even when her mother would call him "Darcy's boyfriend Gavin with that ridiculous nickname", and that's how she's always known him.
"Dad just wanted us to make sure Clare got home safely." Emma explains with a nod of her head. "And we figure with everything going on that we'd come in and introduce ourselves to you officially."
"We're glad to meet you." Audra says with a smile. "Remind me how you know Clare again?"
"Oh, this is Mr. Simpson's step-daughter, Emma. And her husband, Spinner." Clare answers, gesturing to each of them with a flourish of her hand. It's a little weird explaining it to Audra and Omar, but that's the simplest explanation she can give them. "They went to school with Darcy at Degrassi for a while. Spinner owns The Dot, y'know the cafe? And Emma's..." Clare trails off, turning to look at Emma to fill in the blank.
"Oh, yeah, I'm working at an environmental start up. We'll be doing projects to help the local community get involved and make a difference, as well as working with officials to make bigger projects hopefully." Emma fills in where Clare left off, and she seems excited about her position. She's always been the kind of person who wants to help people the best way she can, but never figured out the best way to actually make her work known. She's been very excited about the potential of working with this company for some time now. "Plus, I always do a bunch of side volunteer work with local pet shelters, food banks, that sort of thing."
"It's lucky we've been renting out the loft since we moved, and our leaser just finished, so we have that place for ourselves again. We're starting up to save for a house now, though." Spinner adds with a grin on his face, clearly sharing in the excitement.
He's happy to be back in Toronto officially, not having to commute back and forth every few months to make things work with The Dot while they were living on their own and Emma was going to school, but they agreed that moving away from Toronto for a while was the best thing for both of them to get a fresh start to begin their married lives.
The quick meeting is over before she can really blink, though. Clare's expectations were definitely higher than they should have been. She expected there to be more, but it was simple and quick.
When Clare goes to bed that night she's thinking about family.
Family.
As a writer, she's always been the type of person to think of different meanings and connotations of words and phrases. Family was one of those words that could mean something different depending on who you asked and when you asked them. For Clare, family had always meant her parents and Darcy, no matter how difficult things had been that's who she thought of first.
Now she thought of her family of friends first, the ones who were sticking by her during all of this.
Adam, who Clare had only known for just over a year, was the most unexpected friend she could have asked for. Adam, who's family had taken her in and made her feel so welcome already despite her not living there long, may not be a friend Clare has known for a long time but he's a friend she knows will be in her life forever.
Then there's Alli and Jenna, who have stuck by Clare despite their own drama since their grade nine year, and now nearly halfway through their grade eleven year they're finding more drama to deal with and the two friends have offered all their support.
For her own biological family, Clare can't help but wish that she had more from them right now. She's had a fairly regular relationship with her mother lately, talking through texts often with her almost every other day and keeping in touch. But it's not enough for Clare. She won't say it to her mother, because she knows that Helen has to deal with her marital issues on her own and in her own way, but Clare feels abandoned by her. Like her mother ran away from Clare, leaving her to deal with her problems on her own.
When it comes to her father, Clare feels nothing but anger and hurt. Randall was always someone who seemed so put together and hard working, that Clare feels abandoned by him too, but in a different way. She's deleted all the voicemails, and automatically filtered out emails from him into a folder she won't open yet.
Lastly, with Darcy, she can't blame her sister. She knows that Darcy went through so much, but Clare wishes that maybe her sister would have tried to come home sooner like she promised she would come back.
Now she has more to consider. The pregnancy, the baby. That's part of her family too, but she's not quite yet sure how it all adds up into her own personal definition of family. While the moment that Clare had an inkling that she was pregnant she felt a connection to the baby, a connection that she weighed heavily and knew that it meant she would have the baby herself. She's been dealing with that for some time, while she's known she was pregnant before she took the test she was worried about everything coming to light for fear of her parents...and wasn't that the truth, given how they'd reacted to everything?
For a time, Clare had considered Eli part of her family. Now, she's not so sure. Of course, he's part of her family, he's going to be in her life no matter what, won't he? She's keeping the baby, he's the father, and she wouldn't keep him from being in the child's life if that was something he wanted. But she's not sure where Eli fits with her any longer. Eli's been someone so important to Clare in the past and now she's so unsure of what to think. Given his behavior when he found out and then how he reacted the other day in school, she's worried about everything.
Family is a word that means so much, in so many different ways, but Clare's not sure what it means to her right now.
The next thing she knows, the sun is coming up and lighting up the room she's in. Clare stretches in her bed, turning over to look at the time, sighing. She doesn't remember getting any sleep last night, but she must have gotten some sleep at least because she opens her eyes as she turns over again.
A knock at her door startles her and she shudders out of the covers, sitting up and turning towards the door when the knocking continues. "Clare, are you up?" Adam's voice is kind when he calls through the other side of the door.
"Mhm." Clare answers back, barely holding back a yawn as she shuffles out of bed and goes to open the door and look at Adam, wiping at her face and looking at him. "Morning."
"Morning." Adam replies, his eyes blinking as he looks at Clare. While Adam's dressed and ready for school, Clare looks disheveled and exhausted and his worry is clearly shown on his expression as he speaks again. "Have you slept?"
"Uh huh. Think so. Not much." Clare shrugs her shoulders, leaning against her door frame.
"Okay. Are you feeling okay? Are you okay to go to school today?" Adam asks.
"Yeah, I think so. I've got to shower and maybe that will help me wake up." Clare explains, running a hand through her hair with a shrug of her shoulders and sighing back a yawn. "I'm fine. I'm not feeling sick, Adam. I'm pregnant."
"Still, if you're not feeling okay find me. Or Drew." Adam says with a nod, turning around and heading down the stairs. A few steps down he turns around and looks at Clare with a laugh, "Also, might want to run fast to the bathroom. You know how Drew gets in the morning and he's slept through his alarm once already, he'll be up soon if you want the first shot at the bathroom."
AN: Thanks so much for reading, liking, setting this for alerts, and reviewing. I love getting feedback on my writing, and I think it really helps me to see where I'm going with a story to know what everybody's thinking. I've considered moving this fic and my others possibly to ao3 as well and posting both on here and there simultaneously.