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.

========================

The Altered View Monday Can Bring

========================

March 26^th, 1984

=================================

Chapter Six – The Princess and the Rebel

=================================

"John! John!" Claire yelled, ignoring the strange looks she was getting from the group of ninth-graders John had pushed his way through only moments before. She reached out and touched him gently on the arm, and John looked up startled. Claire was shocked when she saw tears brimming in his dark eyes.

"What do you want, Queenie?" he sneered at her nastily, but Claire didn't fail to notice the shake in his voice. Taking no notice of his snide remark, Claire gently held John by the shoulders and steered him around the side of the school and behind the large oak tree, out of sight and earshot from everyone else.

John was too shocked to retaliate. Once Claire had steered him to their destination however, John had managed to put up enough of his tough-guy façade to be ready to send another, far more cutting remark Claire's way, when Claire reached out and gently lifted his dark hair away from the right side of his face, revealing the nasty bruise there, which he knew was beginning to swell.

"Oh, John…" she murmured. "What happened?"

One part of John wanted to pull away from Claire, to tell her to fuck off and to mind her own fucking business. But the other part wanted nothing more than to just break down and cry like a child and tell her everything that happened - that had ever happened - between himself and his father.

Claire looked up at John, locking her eyes with his. He was looking back at her, a million different expressions passing across his face in a matter of seconds.

"John, you can talk to me. I'm your friend. Please, John, tell me what's wrong." She whispered.

"I fell." He snapped.

Claire raised her eyebrows disbelievingly. "You fell." She repeated.

John narrowed his eyes and glared at her. "Yes," he replied. "I fell."

"Into somebody's fists, by the look of it!" Claire retorted.

John glared at her, hazel eyes blazing. "Get it in to your pretty head, Princess," he sneered. "I. Fell. Over." He snapped. "And because of my own clumsiness, I got a nasty bruise on my face for it." John continued, crossing his arms over his chest, casing the sleeves of his leather jacket and the long-sleeved t-shirt beneath it to slide up his arms, revealing the bruises and cuts that he was desperately trying to hide.

Before she knew what she was doing, Claire had leaned forward and gently pulled his right arm towards her, and pulled John's sleeve up to his elbow. There Claire saw the cigar burn that John had revealed to Andrew on Saturday, but she had only seen it from a distance; up close it was shocking, far worse than it had looked at first. But what horrified her was all the bruises and cuts on his arm and hand that hadn't been there on Saturday.

John angrily snatched his arm back, and hastily pulled his sleeve back down, but not before Claire had seen the five bruises on John's arm that could quite easily have been caused by five fingers and a thumb pressing in too hard...

"John…" Claire trailed off, shocked.

John was looking anywhere but at Claire. "What?" he snapped.

"John…what happened?" she asked.

John was silent.

Claire gently pulled his right hand into her own. "John, what really happened." Claire asked softly, once again pulling the sleeve up. "Falling over once couldn't possible have given you all these cuts and bruises." Claire continued, tracing her fingers gently over the injuries. Who had done this to him? His father?

"I fall over a lot." John drawled. "As I am constantly reminded by my father, I am a clumsy, disrespectful, ugly-"

"I don't think you're ugly." Claire cut in.

John's head snapped up, his mouth hanging open. Then he glared at her again. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" he snapped.

Claire smiled brightly. "I think you're very attractive." She informed him, pleasantly surprised with her statement. She had never thought that she would ever say that aloud, and she was proud of herself.

"Wh…what?!" John spluttered.

Claire smirked at him. "I think you're very attractive." She repeated, savouring the words. "and, from what I saw on Saturday, as well as in the past on other occasions, you are a long way from clumsy." She continued, remembering how John had jumped off the table up to the second-floor balcony in the school library on Saturday without slipping once. And how he had climbed up the statue, and how he had-

"Well, what about disrespectful?" John asked Claire softly. "Am I disrespectful?" he asked, eyebrows raised.

Claire grinned at him. "Only to those who deserve it."

John smiled. Then he looked more troubled than ever, and looked back at the ground.

Claire frowned. "You don't really believe all that shit that your father says, do you?" she whispered.

John looked at her seriously; his dark eyes alight with an emotion she couldn't read. Then he sighed heavily. "I don't know what to believe." He admitted.

Claire was about to reply when-

BRRRRRIIIIINNNNNG!

"Aww, fuckin' hell!" John muttered, as the bell that told students that first period would begin in ten minutes blasted through the school grounds. He looked particularly troubled about something, although about what, Claire couldn't figure out. "I've got better things to do than go to fucking World History." John muttered, referring to first period.

Fearing that John might do something stupid if he skipped first period, Claire clasped onto John's left arm and gently pulled him back around to the front of the school, up the stairs and into the hallway.

John was looking at her disbelievingly. "What are you doing? Everyone can see us!" he hissed at Claire.

Claire turned to John, and seized both of his hands in her own, intertwining their fingers, to stop him from slipping away. "The teachers and etcetera have a staff meeting between first and second period, remember? We get twenty minutes off. But to get to those twenty minutes, we first have to go to first period. So we're going to first period, World History, which we happen to have together." She hissed back. "And you know how-"

"Umm, Claire? What are you doing?"

Claire and John both whipped around to see Hannah Newnham and Geena Smith, two of Claire's friends, walking towards them, looking at them suspiciously. Victoria Sanderson, a wannabe who was always trying to weasel her way into Claire's clique, hovered behind Geena and Hannah.

"Excuse me?" Claire asked, annoyed at being interrupted. But also a little scared. Can I stand up to these people – particularly in front of everyone currently assembled in the main hallway of Shermer High School? Do I have the strength? Or am I just a chicken-shit? A shallow bitch?

Claire looked at John, who was looking at her disbelievingly. "What the hell are you doing?" he whispered snappily.

She smiled serenely. "I know what I'm doing. I'm not a shallow airhead, John. I can stand up for myself."

John glared at her. "Prove it!" he hissed, doubting that she would do it.

She'll cave in, I know she will! John told himself. So why am I hoping that she doesn't? Why am I still standing here at her side? Why am I hoping and wishing and praying that I matter enough to her for her to stand up against her rich-bitch friends and actually be my friend?

Geena was getting more and more annoyed by the fact that with all the noise in the hallway, and from their lowered voices, she couldn't hear what was being said by the two in front of her. Her eyes were fixed on John and Claire, and then flicked to their entwined hands. Then her eyes swept back up to meet Claire's. "What's going on? Is he giving you trouble?" she asked, giving John a dirty look. John glared at her sharply, and Geena quickly returned her gaze to Claire.

"What do you mean, is he giving me trouble?" she asked after a moment.

Geena and Hannah glared at Victoria, who was standing there, looking confused. "Let us deal with this. Go to first period and I'll meet you there." Hannah snapped at Victoria. Victoria nodded and quickly left, as if afraid they would never speak to her again if she didn't do as she was told. Geena raised her eyebrows, and looked back at Claire and John. "He's holding onto your hands, and you two are standing awfully close. It looks as if you are having an argument about something. In other words, it looks like he's giving you trouble." Geena concluded.

"Did you come up with that all by yourself?" John sneered at Geena.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Geena snapped.

Claire couldn't help it. John's smart-arse comment, added with Geena's befuddled expression, she just started laughing. Both John and Geena looked at her like she was insane. She tried to control herself. "He isn't giving me trouble." Claire replied to Geena's query after she had calmed down.

Hannah grit her teeth. "Come on, Claire. Cut the shit. If he isn't giving you trouble, what the hell are you doing with him?"

Claire raised her eyebrows. "Him? You mean John?" she asked calmly.

Geena's eyes again shifted to John, glaring at him. He glared back.

Geena looked away first, looking at Claire instead.

"John and I are going to first period together. We're in the same World History class, you see." Claire continued.

Hannah's eyes flicked to John again, who was looking sat Claire, his expression unreadable. After a moment, his dark eyes moved to Hannah, who quickly looked back at Claire to avoid another staring contest.

John smirked. Chicken-shit bitch. he thought. They're both chicken-shits.

"Are you going to sit with him?" Geena snapped at Claire.

Claire shifted her gaze to John, uncertain. "If he wants me to sit with him, I will."

John looked Claire right in the eyes, smirking. "Your choice, Queenie." He replied, expecting for her to finally fall through and blow him off.

Claire smiled again, looking back at Geena and Hannah, who eyes were narrowed and flicking rapidly from Claire to John, observing the whole exchange with pure malice. What the hell does Claire think she's doing with this guy, anyway? Claire's the type of girl who should be going out with Andrew Clark, or one of the other super-jocks. Geena observed. Not hanging around with one of the school bad-asses. And the way that they're looking at each other, there's definitely something serious going down here. It's almost as if they like each other!

"Then I guess that means I'll be sitting with him in World History." Claire told Geena, snapping her out of her thoughts. "Come on, John, we'll be late!" Claire dragged John away down the hall to World History.

"Oh, that would be a tragedy straight out of Shakespeare." John drawled, letting himself be dragged away. Maybe today won't be so bad after all… he mused.