AN: Welcome to my new story, I'm not sure how this is going to go since I don't have everything planned out like I do for the other stories bouncing around my head. This one started out as a rough idea, really, as I rewatched the end episodes of season 11 and wondered to myself, "what if instead of pushing Eli and Clare together they decided to go with KC and Clare?" Thus, this story was born! To be clear, this story is canon up until In the Cold, Cold Night the season 11 finale. The first chapters of the fic will include bits of the episodes themselves.
Disclaimer: I don't own Degrassi, or its characters, or the dialogue I used from the episode for this chapter. I only came up with the idea for this story.
Chapter One: Back Together Again
Clare's always been the most determined person in the room. The smart one, that's what she always called herself. She was the smart sister, while Darcy was the sporty and popular and pretty one. Sure, grade nine had brought along a lot more than Clare being the "smart one". High school had come with scandal and intrigue and boys, but Clare's always stayed true to being the smart one, keeping her grades up and keeping her head in her extra curricular activities. She's always been the most prepared person for everything, at least that's what she's told herself.
Clare hasn't been prepared for a lot of things since the beginning of high school. There have been so many things that she could never have expected to happen, things that books she read and things she overheard her sister talking about, that none of that would have prepared her to handle. But still, she's done her best to keep up with the demands of her academics and her personal relationships.
Clare never expected to be in the middle of drama, but drama continued to find her at Degrassi. Her grade eleven year was no exception, but thankfully break was coming up soon. Break, time to get away from the drama and maybe get things back on track with her friends. Like Alli and Jenna, she'd been wanting to talk to them for a while, to make things right, but she was stubborn and always needed to be pushed to make things right.
This was her opportunity. Liam telling her that the Daily was going on an early break. It was it, Clare could take over and prove that she could take over as editor of the Daily someday and maybe use it as a way to get back in touch with her friends.
Or at least, she'd thought it was going to be like that. She'd expected that Alli and everybody would help her out, she would have if the roles were reversed. But that's not how it happened. Even as she explained everything to Alli, Jenna, Connor, and KC when she'd gotten to their classroom she could tell it wasn't working. That everything was not going to work out as planned.
"Why should we help you?"
Alli's response still rings in her ears as she carries all the supplies into the media immersion lab. She likes to think that she's helpful and would do anything for her friends, but she knows that she's in the wrong here. She just doesn't know how to make it better. As much as she hates to admit it, Alli's right. She's given her friend no real reason to offer up a hand to help the Daily, to help Clare. Perhaps it's better to focus on everything else she's got to do right then. So, Clare shakes her head as she sighs and gets the thoughts out of her mind.
As she puts the things down on the central table, Clare hears voices and turns her head to look up at them. Connor and KC are hovering over a computer screen and Clare blinks in surprise to see them before her. She hadn't expected, after the way her conversation had gone with Alli in front of everybody, that anyone would show up. But here sat Connor and KC at a computer, talking about something on the computer, something about the newspaper.
The bubbles in her stomach nearly clear at the sight as she moves to look at what they're doing. Maybe this means something good was happening.
"What are you guys doing here?" Clare asks as she moves to the computer, her eyes moving on focus between KC and Connor and the computer screen.
"Well you mentioned the easy extra curriculars right?" KC says with a shrug of his shoulders and a smile in her direction.
"Yeah, I did." Clare's smile can't be bigger at the thought of not having to do all of the work alone. Not that she wasn't entirely convinced she could have handled it all on her own, but she would have been working and stressing late into the night at school and at home. Plus, when it comes to sports the last time Clare was at a sporting event for the school was either back when she was with KC, as she paid attention back then, or when she helped Alli out with her dance squad that one time. Clare puts the Daily binders down on the computer table and looks at the screen Connor and KC have been working on, "What's this?"
"It's a mock up of an old nineteenth century newspaper. We were thinking we could go for an old school look for the holiday edition." KC explains while Connor scrolls through the mock up. So far all they have is the title of the newspaper, Degrassi Daily, in big letters across the front but Clare can already see this.
"Very impressive." Clare grins, turning back to collect the things she'd left on the center table as she continues to talk. She can't help the somewhat bitterness that seeps into her words as she says her next sentence, "It's nice to know I have some friends that I can still count on."
KC and Connor share a look while Clare's head is turned in the opposite direction, she's focused on organizing everything else she's brought with her. As she's about to tell the others what they can do she hears KC ask about what happened between her and Alli and Connor answering. How Connor answers, explaining things bluntly and without heart makes Clare wince, shaking her head at the words.
"I mean, that's not exactly what I would say." Clare interjects making a face at everything while she's keeping herself turned away from her two friends' faces. Even though that's the basic rundown of what actually happened, there was more built up between all of it and Clare can't help but feel like that makes it seem pettier than it all actually was. Though, looking back, she can admit that it was petty.
"Well, can't you just talk to Alli and make up?" KC suggests.
"You saw earlier, we're not exactly on speaking terms right now. I think it's just going to be the three of us working on the holiday edition." Clare says, tapping her pencil on the table and biting her lip nervously. She's worried that because of this, with only the three of them, the two might back out.
"You should at least give it a try, Clare. We can't exactly do a whole paper with just three staff members." KC drops his hands against his sides before putting them into his pockets and shrugging.
Clare sighs, looking at the two at the computer and knowing that they're right. They do need more help, but she's worried Alli won't accept her apology. That it's going to be too little, too late at this point. "It's going to seem like I'm only apologizing because of the paper, and we all know that." Clare explains, looking out the windows of the room and biting her lip. "I guess I can try. But I can't promise anything."
Clare spends a couple of minutes with KC and Connor discussing the layout and what they're going to need versus what they already have. Clare has her article on the holiday food drive already written, which is one story. But a paper built on one story is not a paper. KC says he can write a sports story, and Connor can do the layout, and he can write a bit about technology too.
Finally, they part ways and head off to their next classes, Clare thanking the two of them profusely and then walking into the hallway to find Alli. She goes to the one place where she thinks that she'll find her, her locker.
"Alli," Clare says, getting her friend's attention but Alli doesn't look up at her long enough before she turns away and starts walking in the opposite direction. "Alli, can we talk?"
"I don't really have anything to say to you Clare." Alli replies with a shrug, shifting her bag up higher on her shoulder.
"Alli, please, listen to me." Clare pleads with her friend, forgetting that they're in the middle of the hallway. Alli sighs, turning around to look at Clare with an annoyed glance and crosses her arms. "I'm sorry. I was a hypocrite, I blamed you for everything that happened and I let Jake off the hook. It wasn't fair."
"No, it wasn't. But, Clare, do you have any idea what I was going through last summer?" Alli says, rolling her eyes at the comment. She knows Clare doesn't have a clue about the truth of it all.
"You and Dave were fighting..." Clare answers, but she's not sounding so sure of herself.
Alli shakes her head, "Dave cheated on me. He had sex with some other girl, and you called my problems pedestrian. So, yeah, after I found out I stupidly kissed Jake, but my best friend was so self obsessed she didn't even realize I needed her! And now, now, the only reason you're even talking to me is because you need help with the paper."
Clare's had no idea what Alli was going through, and every word that her best friend says is stinging because she knows it's true. She knows she waited too long to talk to Alli, to apologize for everything. She knows she should have been there for her, and asked. "That's not true. Of course that's not true. Alli, I'm... I waited too long to talk to you and say I'm sorry. I am sorry, I should have talked to you earlier. But I didn't think and...this isn't because of the paper. This is because you're my best friend and I miss you. The paper's just an excuse for me to finally talk to you again. I just wish that after all the years we've been best friends you'd give me another chance. I was wrong."
Alli doesn't say anything, just looks at Clare and walks off in the other direction. Clare should have expected that to be something, but she's still heartbroken. She's still not sure what happened just then, but she doesn't expect to see Alli later after school at the newspaper meeting.
The rest of the school day Clare spends bouncing between worry of the newspaper issue that she thought she could have saved and maybe now might have to actually give up on and worrying about her friends that maybe she's lost forever. Clare doesn't know what to do about the newspaper, but focusing on school work isn't enough to get her head focused.
So much for being the smart one. Clare can barely focus on her classes. She finds herself working on everything but school work, thankfully it's the last couple of days before winter break, at least. She knows that there's not much work going on, but she'll need to ask her friends for notes in the classes she had that afternoon, if they'll give her any information about them.
Does she even have any friends still left that she could call upon to help?
After school Clare's in the lab, she has old copies of the holiday edition of the Degrassi Daily opened and she's looking through the important bits, making notes with post its and writing headings and making notes of what needs to be done still. She's waiting for Connor and KC to show up, but her hopes are dwindling as time passes. She's not sure that they're going to show up. Maybe Alli and Jenna talked to them or something. Clare's so busy focused on getting major highlights for what need to be in the Daily's holiday edition she doesn't hear any voices or noise at the doorway of the media lab at first.
"Degrassi's minions at your service, where do you need us?" Alli's voice startles Clare and she turns around to see the group of friends who walked into the room.
"Hey." Clare smiles, shaking her head and blinking at the sight in front of her. She caps the white board marker and looks between her friends as she continues, "What are you guys doing here?" Clare asks, rather stunned at seeing Alli and Jenna with Connor and KC.
"Well, alls forgiven." Jenna comments while she and Alli share a look. Then she turns back to look at Clare. "You're not still mad at me, right?"
Clare waves Jenna's comment off and smiles, "Please, I'm so over all of that. You can date whoever you want, even if it's Jake."
"Jake and I are just friends, I promise." Jenna nods her head with a smile.
"Okay, so where do we start?" Alli asks, turning to Clare.
"Well, KC and Connor got assignments earlier, but there's still some left." Clare says, turning toward the board and gesturing to the spots that are open without a name next to them. KC and Connor have already gone off to work on computers while Jenna and Alli walk closer to the board and look at the options.
"Oh, dibs on music reviews!" Jenna exclaims, turning to look at everything she needs to be prepared.
"I can do photography." Alli comments, picking up a camera from the table.
"Okay, great, I've got the humanities. And does anybody want to take on theater, the Grundy nominations just came out?" Clare says as she uncaps the marker again to write everything out on the board next to names. "Oh, and there's the frostival, can we get someone to write about that?" Clare turns around and sees everybody has gone about looking and focusing on their own projects already. "Seriously guys, no one wants either of these?" Clare asks, shaking her head.
"Sorry Clare, I don't think anybody else is walking through the doors." Alli says, pointing to the doorway.
"Is there anybody else you have to make up with?" Jenna asks, a light laugh as she says it mainly as a joke.
There's a knock at the door and two figures standing in the doorway, looking between the room. "Are you still looking for writers?" Eli asks, gesturing to himself and Adam as they walk into the room. Jenna and Alli share a look, but stay silent at the comment. "If you need someone for Arts I'm your guy."
"Great! It's settled Eli will cover the Grundy award nominations and Adam can cover the frostival!" Alli grins excitedly, turning toward Clare.
"Oh, sweet. Carnival stuff." Adam says, walking over to where KC and Connor are sitting by the computers and taking a seat by them, picking up one of the binders and flipping through it.
"You mean the awards show that snubbed my play, Love Roulette?" Eli says, shaking his head at the thought and sighing. "I..." Eli pauses, looking around the room at the faces of everybody. His words seem to have had an affect on everyone in the room and he's only just caught on. With a shrug of his shoulders, Eli adds, "I guess that was understandable."
"So, let's get to work then?" Alli says, turning to look at the camera in her hands and then flipping through the booklet of discs they might need to go through to add to the paper too.
"If that's alright with you, Clare." Eli says, turning his attention back to Clare. While he invited himself to help as soon as Adam said he was going to see if Clare needed another set of hands for working on the school paper after everything happened at the end of the school day, Eli wasn't going to actually help if Clare said it wasn't alright with her if he stuck around and helped. There was too much tension between them, too much tension he'd caused. He didn't want to make things worse, newspaper was her domain, and she had a group of friends around her helping out too. He just wanted to offer a hand and lend whatever help he could too.
Nodding her head slowly as she's processing all of this, Clare turns and puts the marker back to the whiteboard and writes Adam and Eli's names into the places on the board next to what they'll be writing. Finally it's full and she grins. Maybe it's not really okay, but Clare's all for making amends right now. Alli, Jenna, and now Eli. She figures she needs to do this, to work on her relationships. "Of course it's okay. Let's get to work everybody."
AN: Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it! Let me know what you thought. Updates will probably be once a week like my other story as I'm trying to get ahead of myself with chapters so I can post at least once a week and get something out for everything.