For all other author's notes and the disclaimer see Chapter One. Please read them before reading the fic. Thanks. Send feedback to nova_mist@yahoo.com Please read and review.

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The Altered View Monday Can Bring

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March 26th, 1984

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Chapter Two

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Claire Standish got out of her mother's silver Mercedes-Benz, picking up her purse as she went.

"Bye, darling," Penelope Standish, Claire's mother, said stiffly to her daughter, avoiding eye contact.

Claire looked at her mother's face, which was plastered with an unusually high amount of foundation, something neither she nor her mother normally wore. "Bye, mother." she replied sadly, and shut the car door behind her, and stormed across the parking lot to the front steps of Shermer High School without looking back. And it was only after hearing the unmistakable purring of the Mercedes-Benz's engine disappear as her mother disappeared from the parking lot that Claire turned around to look mournfully at the retreating silver car. She flopped down on the steps, ignoring the strange looks of those around her, who were obviously wondering why The Princess was sitting in such an ordinary, common, and possibly unsanitary place.

But at that moment, the Earth itself could have descended into the fiery pits of Hell and Claire wouldn't have noticed she was so absorbed in her thoughts, her parents' angry voices echoing in her head.

"Why the Hell don't you ever listen to me? I grounded her, and you immediately jump up as soon as my back is turned and tell her it's okay if she leaves the house?" Penelope yelled angrily.

"But, Penny, she didn't leave the house!" Terrence Standish, Claire's father, retorted.

"Although I do appreciate the fact that, for once, our daughter actually followed my instructions, Terrence, that isn't the point! The point is that you went behind my back and told her she was perfectly welcome to disobey me if she thought it fit to do so!" Penelope screeched.

Quite suddenly, Claire's father had lunged forward as if to hit his wife.

"Don't you EVER tell me what I can and can't do!" Terrence snarled, his open hand connecting with his wife's cheek.

"BASTARD!" Penny screamed, clutching her stinging cheek. "I'm going to KILL YOU!"

Claire could take it no longer. She stormed down the stairs into the kitchen, and lunged between her parents. "STOP IT!" she yelled. "STOP IT! You're acting like children! You don't have to fight all the time!" Claire paused, and her voice lowered almost to a whisper. "I hate it when you fight." She said quietly, tears streaming silently down her cheeks.

Her father looked down at her then. "Well, maybe if we didn't have you, we wouldn't fight so much, you worthless bitch." He snarled at her, raising his hand to her. Claire looked up, frightened. The man that looked back at her was not her father, but held the face of a stranger, his blue eyes hot and wild and dangerous.

But before he could bring the hand down to connect with his daughter's cheek, Penny stepped in, grabbing the hand in mid-air.

"You will NOT hit out daughter!" she hissed.

Claire looked fearfully from her mother to her father and back again. Two total strangers stood there, their eyes blazing, a silent standoff occurring between them.

Finally, Terrence yanked his hand away from Penny's grasp, cursing under his breath. He blazed out of the kitchen.

Claire looked at her mother, who was still frozen in place, lost in thought.

"Mum?" Claire asked timidly.

Her mother shook her head slightly, as if to snap herself out of her thoughts. "Yes, darling?" she asked.

"Are…are you alright?"

Her mother smiled slightly. "Yes, Claire, I'm fine." She paused. "Your father will be staying in a motel tonight, and I'm going to sleep now. I'll see you in the morning." She kissed her daughter on the forehead, and trotted quickly up the stairs, leaving Claire alone in the kitchen.

Alone and ridiculously confused.

Claire gripped the kitchen bench for support and sank to her knees on the cold tiles, and she cried and cried until she didn't have any tears left. And then, alone, she trudged up to her bedroom and slammed the door behind her.

Claire shook her head slightly to clear her head of her unwanted thoughts about Saturday night screaming match between her parents. "And I thought my life was supposed to be perfect." Claire sneered under her breath. "Yeah, it's perfect alright. All my parents ever do is fight, my father is still at the motel, and the only thing I could think about on Sunday was John Bender."

In fact, she'd been thinking about him on Saturday night, too. Particularly after the fight her parents had. She smiled to herself slightly, thinking back to Saturday night. Well, John, The Princess finally got a taste of the real world. Claire had thought to herself, smiling bitterly. But I bet that a fight like my parents just had was nothing compared to what you must live with. You must have to be a very strong person to be able to survive all that shit like you do. And dickheads like Vernon picking at you constantly wouldn't help. She mused.

On Saturday and Sunday, Claire had thought about John, but also about Brian, Allison and Andrew, the other three of the five people that made up the 'Breakfast Club', as Brian had called them.

"What is going to happen to us on Monday? When all together again? I mean I consider you guys my friends…So, what happens?" Brian had asked everyone.

"Are we still friends, you mean? If we're friends now, that is?" Claire had replied.

"Yeah..." Brian whispered.

"Do you want the truth?" Claire asked.

"Yeah, I want the truth..."

"I don't think so..." she replied after a moment, feeling strangely light-headed, but not from the pot.

"Well, do you mean all of us or just John?" Allison asked in little more than a whisper.

"With all of you..." Claire had said, trying to ignore the nasty sicking feeling she felt in her stomach when she said that.

"That's a real nice attitude, Claire!" Andrew snapped.

Claire glared at him. "Oh, be honest, Andy...if Brian came walking up to you in the hall on Monday, what would you do? I mean picture this, you're there with all the sports. I know exactly what you'd do, you'd say hi to him and when he left you'd cut him all up so your friends wouldn't think you really liked him!" she sneered at him.

"No way!" Andy replied hotly.

"'Kay, what if I came up to you?" Allison asked smoothly.

"Same exact thing." Claire replied softly. she felt sick, as though she'd swallowed sour milk.

The others were silent, contemplating all that had been said. all, except for John Bender. "You are a bitch!" he screamed at her furiously.

Claire looked up quickly, surprised that John as so angry. "Why? Because I'm telling the truth, that makes me a bitch?" she retorted.

John shook his head, and looked her right in the eyes. "No! Because you know how shitty that is to do to someone! And you don't got the balls to stand up to your friends and tell them that you're going to like who you want to like!"

Later, when Claire had gone to see John in the closet Vernon had locked him in, they talked for a long time.

"You know what you said earlier about standing up to my friends, and telling them 'I'll like who I want to like'?" she asked him.

John looked up at her from his seat on the bundle of boxes. "Yeah," he said casually.

Claire had paused for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts. "Sometimes I wonder if I have the strength inside me to do that, John. To stand up to them. To tell them what I really think about them. Before now, I simply didn't think about their superficiality, I blocked it out, or maybe it just never occurred to me to think about it. I don't know. But today…today I realised just how shallow my 'friends' and I all are."

She looked at John again, to find him looking up at her thoughtfully. "What do you mean by 'friends'?" he asked her. "You said it in a tone bordering on cynical."

Claire sighed. "John, I'm not completely stupid." She said, regretting it immediately, thinking John would say something sarcastic about her being stupid. But whiny she looked back at him, he was still sitting there, thoughtful look on his face, listening to her intently. Pleasantly surprised, Claire continued quickly in case John changed his mind and said something snide. "I know that people like Mandy Parker and Brittany Sloane and Jody Hunting are my friends because of who my parents are and who their parents are. They aren't really my friends. We're just a clique, nothing more."

John let out a low whistle. "Wow, that's gotta be a bitch."

Claire smiled at the memory, wondering if her friends...   

"Claire! Over here!"

"Speak of the devil," Claire muttered, looking up to see Mandy, Brittany and Jody sauntering over to meet her from across the parking lot.

They all sat down next to Claire on the stairs. "Oh my GAWD! You will not BELIEVE what happened to me on the weekend!" Mandy squealed. "My parents took my little brother, Sammy, and I out on the yacht, right, and it was so gross! My parents were being so lovey-dovey and mushy to each other. It was disgusting!"

Claire felt the overwhelming urge to spit in her face. To stop herself from doing so, Claire looked over at the 4x4 speeding out of the parking lot, watching it retreat into the distance, and the dark figure storming angrily away from it. The figure looked up, revealing his face – well, half of it, anyway – but Claire knew all along who it was.

"Who are you looking at, Claire?" Jody asked, while Mandy and Brittany started to share stories of how "totally, like, gross!" it was when parents showed displays of affection in public.

Still watching John, who was getting closer by the second, Claire smiled thinly. She was about to reply when a sudden gush of wind swept across the landscape, blowing John's hair away from his face for the briefest of moments, revealing the nasty bruise on his face which was stating to swell. Before she knew what she was doing, she had bolted down the stairs and was racing over to John's side, leaving Jody, Mandy and Brittany behind her, their mouths hanging open from shock.