Author's Note: This Prologue may seem out of left field, but it will all make sense in the end. This story is Flare centered, and while I respect all Eclare shippers, I just want it known that if you hate Flare, you will hate this! Jesus etc. Part 1 is referenced, and the promos for Jesus, etc Part 2 are referenced in my own way. It's just my little take on how things should go down if I had my way with the whole Fitz, Clare, and Eli triangle.
Prologue
She had not expected to find it when cleaning her room. She had sworn that she had thrown ever last piece of her relationship with him in the trash so long ago but yet there they were-the happy, young, naïve couple in the glossy colored photo starring up at her.
"What have you got there?" Clare almost dropped the photo in surprise at the male voice that had spoken to her. She thought she was alone, but how could she forget? Eli was picking her up in an hour. Had she wasted an hour in cleaning out her closet?
Clare spun around with a smile.
"It's nothing," she said, crumbling and tossing the photo into the wastebasket.
"Well, it looks like something. Are we keeping secrets?" Eli smiled but he looked concerned as he reached into the trash and smoothed out the picture.
"It's just KC and me from a million years ago. I was surprised to find it, I thought my room was KC free." She laughed softly to show Eli that the picture, like her long ago relationship with KC, meant nothing to her now.
Eli laughed too.
"I can't believe you dated a jock." He shook his head in mock disgust, "Good thing you traded up." He re-crumbled the photograph and threw into the trashcan.
Claire nodded.
"It almost seems like it's a story I once read. I am familiar with the characters and plot lines, but it doesn't feel like it actually happened to me. And I cannot believe how sad I was, I was devastated. I thought my heart was being ripped out." She was rambling, and the last sentence made Eli flinch. Did it bother him to hear about her heartbreak? All she was trying to say was that she didn't even understand how she could have felt that pain for KC now. But she had felt it. She had been sick for weeks, thinking that the pain would not end. But it had, and it all seemed foolish to her now.
She walked over to Eli and put her arms around his waist.
" I can't believe how stupid I was, or how lucky I am now."
Eli responded by wrapping his arms around her, and Clare knew everything was ok.
"I am the lucky one," Eli breather into her ear.