Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise; you know what to expect from this site.

Feedback: Always appreciated.

The Not-So-Average Girl

Claire had no idea why everyone in her life had been acting oddly the last few days, but at this point she'd settle for someone giving her a straight explanation. She appreciated that Kim and Ron's strange moments were limited to them occasionally looking at her in a curious manner, as though they weren't sure if they should tell her something even they were having trouble working out, but the way Zach kept smiling at her as though he had some big secret he was waiting for her to find out, coupled with how often her dad had been 'called into work for an emergency'…

Seriously, what kind of emergency can anyone have at a paper company?

In a strange way, it was a relief when she walked into the amphitheatre with her tray and saw that the other students were still mixed up into their traditional cliques. For a moment she thought about trying to rejoin the rest of the cheerleaders, but when she saw Kim sitting off to one side of the main group with Ron, she shifted her steps towards the two and sat down beside them.

"Everything OK?" Kim looked at her.

"Just…" Claire shrugged as she indicated the rest of the squad, particularly as Jackie glared over at her.

"Her royal Fakeness again, huh?" Ron smiled, prompting what Claire could have sworn was an affirmative chitter from his pocket.

"Let's just say if I'd stayed over there any longer I'd have lost my appetite," Claire affirmed.

"Why do you think I don't hang out with the rest of the squad that much?" Kim pointed out.

"I'm starting to get that," Claire smiled at the redhead as she sat down beside them. "Is it just that we're weird, or that we grew up faster?"

"Me, I say that the important thing is that we're all just ourselves," Ron shrugged. "There's a reason I say 'Never be normal', after all."

"'Never be normal', huh?" Claire smiled at Ron. "I suppose I can see the appeal, although I'd guess you never expected you'd meet somebody who could take it this far?"

"Not that it's a bad thing, y'know-" Ron began anxiously.

"I get that," Claire nodded reassuringly at him before she looked at the school outcast with a thoughtful smile. "You know, you might have a reputation as an oddball around here, but you're all right."

"That's Ron," Kim smiled, reaching over to give him a brief one-armed hug. "He's got his own way of doing things, but I wouldn't have him any other way."

"Hey!" Zach said, hurrying over to the trio with a slight grin.

"What?" Claire looked up at Zach, wincing internally as she realised that she hadn't even looked for him when she was getting her lunch; Kim and Ron might be good friends, but she didn't want to neglect the boy who'd been there for her when she'd just learned what she was capable of.

"The principal's posting the homecoming queen announcement," he explained, indicating where the principal and a couple of other teachers were taking a sheet of paper to a nearby notice board

. "Aren't you gonna go see if you won?"

"What's the point?" Claire said, wondering what had prompted Zach to have such an interest in homecoming of all things.

"You do know you're a finalist, right?" Ron pointed out to the blonde.

"Yeah, I never even went for it myself because I was busy with… well, other stuff, but you definitely got on the ballot," Kim observed, before she gave Claire an encouraging smile. "Go on, check it out; what can it hurt?"

Resigned to going along with the eager looks she was receiving from Zach in particular, Claire got up and headed for the board to check the results, trying to ignore the blank stare of Brody as he sat in his wheelchair with his former teammates. She didn't blame herself for his amnesia, considering Kim's points about its unnatural state, but she did recognise Kim's argument that her response to Brody's attack had been a bit too extreme.

"Kinda nervy for someone in your position to be running for homecoming queen," Jackie put in as Claire ended up walking alongside her.

"My position?" Claire repeated, not wanting to pull ahead or back away in case it gave Jackie more potential 'ammunition' against her.

"You know, pariah?" Jackie said, actually stifling a small laugh. "You hospitalized the MVP, annihilating any hope of us actually winning the game. You're not deluded enough to think you're actually gonna win?"

"No delusions," Claire shook her head briefly at Jackie's expressed incredulity. "It's a popularity contest, and you've made it very clear that I am no longer popular."

"It's more than a popularity contest," Jackie corrected her in a tone that Claire might just have considered using on a mentally handicapped person if she was being particularly cruel. "Being selected homecoming queen is about serving your school. God, Claire. I didn't think you were that shallow."

"Says the girl who's just a cheerleader?" Claire observed as they gathered in front of the list. "If any of us are 'serving the school', I'm pretty sure Kim does more for this place than either of us."

"Which leaves her so overstretched she doesn't really connect with anyone else to the point where she'd have a serious chance at this," Jackie countered. "Seriously, the only person who can put up with her is that big-eared loser…"

Jackie's voice trailed off when she finally got close enough to see the list, and Claire's own eyes widened when she realised what had caught Jackie's attention.

She had no idea how it had happened, but that was her name under 'Homecoming Queen'…

Even when she heard the cheering students from around her, led by Zack with Kim and Ron rallying a bit more support from other parts of the student body, Claire still couldn't quite believe what had just happened.

How had she managed to win something she'd never even entered…?

"Can you believe that?" Ron grinned at Kim as they walked away from school, ready to change before the homecoming dance later that evening.

"Which part?" Kim grinned back at him. "The part where Claire won without even running her own campaign, the part where Zach ran a whole campaign on her behalf appealing to everyone who isn't a fan of the popular kids, or the part where Claire punched Jackie for what she said to Zach?"

"Probably the first two, really," Ron shrugged. "I mean, I'm not saying I'm a fan of beating people up, but can you honestly say Jackie didn't earn it?"

"After taking credit for Claire's rescue?" Kim chuckled slightly. "Yeah, she definitely had that coming. I mean, I'm still waiting for the moment when something will happen where Jackie ends up publically humiliated as a liar in front of everyone, but that punch'll do for now."

"Oh yeah," Ron grinned, before he looked curiously at Kim. "How come you never tried that?"

"Huh?" Kim looked at Ron.

"Zach's campaign strategy," Ron clarified. "I mean, I can get behind his whole idea of people voting for Claire because they're voting for the outsider, but… well, don't take this the wrong way, KP, but you're just as much of an outsider as she is these days, what with you hanging out with me over the rest of the squad and stuff like that, so why…?"

"Probably because that I'm not exactly an active outsider," Kim clarified as she smiled thoughtfully at Ron. "I mean, I take part in all these clubs and help organise all these school events because I want to help people, but it means I'm more of… well, I guess you could say I'm in everything rather than being outside something."

"Where Claire's been kind of outside everything since… well, probably since she realised what she could do," Ron nodded thoughtfully at her. "Yeah, guess that makes sense… hey, is that why you're not taking part in the cheer routine this year?"

"Bingo," Kim nodded with a slightly grim smile. "That's the price I pay for trying to be there for Claire, I guess… I mean, I don't mind that or anything-"

"I get what you mean," Ron nodded. "It's… well, kinda weird to think about all that, I guess."

"Yeah, it's not every day you meet someone with… well, superpowers, I guess," Kim said, falling into a thoughtful silence for a moment before she looked at Ron with a brighter smile on her face. "So, shall we meet up later?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, I get that it'll probably be a bit awk-weird, and I'm not saying it has to be as anything more than friends, but since things with Claire kept me a bit busy lately…" Kim shook her head and looked apologetically at Ron. "Sorry, that probably sounded a bit… look, I just meant that, since we're both going to this dance this evening without anyone else, so we're not the dateless wonders hanging out at the side-"

"We… go together?" Ron asked, looking at her in surprise. "To Homecoming?"

"Just as friends, as I said," Kim assured him with a brief smile. "We both need to get home and change, and I should probably check how Mom's doing with her latest case, but I'll meet you at your house in a couple of hours?"

"Uh… sure," Ron nodded at her.

"Cool," Kim smiled at him. "We can pick up Claire before it all kicks off; see you!"

As she ran off down the street towards her house, Ron smiled after his friend for a moment before his eyes widened as he pulled Rufus out of his pocket.

"Uh… did that sound like we're going on a date, or is it just me?" he asked his pet. Rufus chittered uncertainly in response, looking at Ron in a manner that could have been incredulous or enthusiastic at the prospect.

"I mean, OK, she said all that stuff about how this is just us as friends, and I get that, but it's just… we've never done anything this… adult-y as friends," Ron continued, setting off towards home as he continued speaking to Rufus. "Should I be… I dunno, it's not like I never thought about it, but it's… I mean, KP's…"

He trailed off, realising that even he wasn't sure where he was going with this.

As he'd said to Rufus, it wasn't as though he'd never noticed that Kim Pierce was attractive, but he'd been her friend for so long… had he ever actually registered that she was becoming a woman? It wasn't like he didn't think of her as being better-looking than the other cheerleaders, but most of that was because the likes of Jackie Wilcox treated him like something they wanted to scrape off their shoe…

Forcing that increasingly-awkward train of thought to the back of his mind, Ron turned his attention to the matter of the upcoming dance; he didn't want to look as though he'd put too much effort into getting dressed up for something that was just him and Kim meeting up as friends, but at the same time this deserved a little more than his usual jersey…

"Nice," Kim nodded in approval when she joined Ron outside his house. Kim was wearing a sleeveless long dark blue dress with a modest neckline while Ron was wearing a dark blue shirt with a dark version of his usual khaki pants, wanting a suitable pocket for Rufus even if he was keeping to the theme of the evening.

"What can I say?" Ron grinned at his friend as they began to walk towards Claire's house. "Just because I don't bother dressing up doesn't mean I don't know how."

"And the fact that you know this year's Homecoming Queen probably doesn't hurt?"

"Hey!" Ron said, suddenly looking uncomfortably at Kim. "Uh… you know that's not a big thing, right? I mean, I didn't even tell the 'rents we were going to this thing together-"

"I get that," Kim smiled, before her expression faltered slightly. "Mom's still not back from her latest case, and I decided… well, Dad doesn't need to know what we're doing here, right?"

"Yeah…" Ron nodded, once again struck at the contrast in his and Kim's relationships with their parents. It wasn't as though his parents didn't care about him at all, but when Kim's parents appreciated being kept up-to-date, Ron's seemed to expect him to tell them about anything important without sharing anything with him until they had a clear reason to share it with him…

"Huh," Kim commented, looking at her phone in surprise.

"What?"

"Claire's dad grounded her."

"What?" Ron repeated in surprise. "Why would he-?"

"She didn't say," Kim said, displaying the text message to Ron. "I mean, I don't even know what Claire could have even done to make her dad ground her tonight…"

She stared at the phone for a moment before she put it back in her pocket and looked resolutely at Ron. "Let's go."

Ron didn't have time to ask what his friend was talking about before Kim began to walk briskly down the street, moving as quickly as she could given the relatively restrictive design of her dress. As he hurried after her, Ron saw Kim pull out her phone and send off another few texts, apparently exchanging messages with someone at the other end until they reached Claire's house. Ron didn't even need to ask what they were doing before Kim led him around the back of the house, where the blonde was waiting at her window with a thick hardback book to one side, as though she'd been reading it before their arrival.

"You really think this is a good idea?" Claire looked at Kim in surprise.

"What can I say?" Kim shrugged. "No one grounds the Queen."

"Yeah," Ron said. "Besides, you already proved what you're standing for when you hit Jackie like that; backing out now just leaves it open for her to take the throne, and nobody wants that."

"My dad would pitch a fit," Claire said, albeit in a manner that made it clear she was going to go along with their proposal.

"He'll probably only find out once the dance is over, and the worst he can do is ground you again," Ron observed. "Come on, I think we all deserve this after everything else you've been through the last few weeks."

"…I do deserve this," Claire said, smiling in agreement before she assumed a more serious expression. "And… thanks."

"So not the drama-" Kim began.

"It is," Claire affirmed. "And not just because you came here; I mean…"

She paused for a moment before looking at Ron with a smile. "I guess it's like you said at lunch, Ron; we all need to learn to just… never be normal sometimes."

"Exactly," Kim nodded, reaching up to squeeze Ron's shoulder. "It's time to defy expectations and be who we are, and who you are right now is the homecoming queen who can heal from anything they throw at her, so let's get you to your kingdom."

"Just let me lock up and change, and I'll be right down," Claire nodded at the two with an ever-expanding grin. As she turned away, she picked up the book that had been by her side to put it away; Kim briefly caught the word 'Evolution' on the cover before it was taken away from the window, but decided not to think too much about that in favour of the upcoming party.

If Claire wanted to do some research on her ability, that probably wasn't a bad idea, but Kim couldn't think of a reason why that couldn't wait until tomorrow…