A/N: Prepare for cheese. Of the Cheesy Angst variety. Or is it Angsty Cheese? Yeah. Sorry. Hopefully it makes sense…


No, I can't take one more step towards you

Fitz stood still as a crack of thunder rumbled overhead. Clare felt the understandably overwhelming urge to slam shut the door in his face and curl up under safe covers and hide in sleep for forever. But she didn't. She couldn't.

She was frozen in time. Frozen in place.

'Cause all that's waiting is regret

It was all a blur. Eli in her arms. His blood on her hands. The knife left abandoned on the floor in Mark's haste to flee. Terrifying and unsettling, Eli's raspy breaths were coming in shallow gasps, echoing against the hallway walls. It was too much. All too much

Clare heard a scream and she just wished the noise would stop. Eli looked like he was in so much pain, breathing heavily and his eyes shut tight.

Still screaming. Clare wondered if or when it would ever end. She felt tears in her eyes and a tentative hand grasp her shoulder. The screaming subsided. Clare was shocked to realize it had been she who had caused it. Almost completely unreal, her body felt numb as she looked up to see Mr. Simpson above her.

"Sir—I don't even—" Her hands shook with each struggling word.

He cut her off with a sharp shake of his head. Within seconds a team of medics arrived and swept Eli away. Just like that and he was gone.

For the first time that day, Clare was left feeling so small and alone in that hallway, alone without Eli. Principal Simpson tried to help, keeping an arm around her shoulder and steering her to the light.

You lost the love I loved the most

"You're with him now, aren't you?" Mark's sudden question was quiet and unplanned, just a low whisper in the rain, as random as his unexpected intrusion back into her life had been. It shook her out of the memories and brought her back to the present moment.

Consequently, Clare could not have been more surprised. Of all the things she'd expected him to say, this one barely even made sense to her. "Who?"

There was something in his eyes Clare couldn't quite place. The expression itself she hardly recognized. He was taken aback by her confusion, sure, but there was something else. Something deeper. A fire no longer burned insidiously in them as it had for so long, Instead, there lacked resentment. No hatred. Only hurt. And something like regret.

"Eli." Lightening lit his face as he clarified, speaking the name as if the answer should have been obvious. "You're with him now, aren't you?" Not an accusation. Just sad, reticent resignation. Something like acceptance.

It took so long just to feel alright
Remember how to put back the light in my eyes

Clare could only remember it in flashes. Blurs. The rest of the night spent at the hospital. Cece and Bullfrog clutching hands tightly, Alli's arms around her and Adam squeezing a hand. Principal Simpson looking sickly but trying to stand strong. Her mother not answering any of her calls.

The tired looking doctor pulling the Goldworthys aside. The snippets of conversation she heard from a distance because she wasn't family…"Critical condition… lost a lot of blood… surgery…" The words floated through the air but Clare could hardly make sense of them.

This was her fault. All her fault.

And her mother still hadn't answered any of her calls.

I've learned to live, half alive

Midnight came and Clare still had no idea where her mother was or if it was at all possible to get comfortable on the stiff hospital chairs or how Adam and Alli could fall asleep on her shoulder in the waiting room at a time like this. And she certainly didn't know what it meant if a person was in "critical but stable condition" or when she would even get to see Eli.

She only wanted a chance to apologize. But she knew fate would just be cruel to her. Make her wait anxiously and wretchedly. More than fair enough punishment for letting Eli come to her rescue. Clare told herself she could live with the waiting. As long as he made it out alive.

Leaving scars…
Tearing love apart

A firm "no," Clare shook her head but adamantly admitted, "He's my best friend," the tears swimming faster down her cheeks now. His face filled her mind. Eli made her smile. Made her laugh. Feel happy again. Whole inside after all this time has gone by.

Such a complete and total polar-opposite contrast to the boy now standing before her.

If Fitz was a firework explosion that shook her to the core and made her love fiercely and by the same token, reduce her to tears just as easily, Eli was a like a candlelight shining defiantly in a soft, benevolent glow. A slow yet brilliant sunrise on a new day. Somehow there to bring her hope.

Clare knew she loved him like any girl would love her very best friend. But she felt that Fitz had misunderstood. Ever since Vegas Night, Clare told herself she didn't love Eli in that way. The way she used to love Mark. She felt sure she wouldn't love anyone like she had him.

Although this didn't stop her eyes from continuing to flood, remembering the time when she felt convinced she no longer had either of them. And inexplicably, the one boy she perhaps missed the most—the one she thought was gone from the world on that dark, unforeseen night, the one she watched crumble to the ground—was the one she let comfort her fears and insecurities, alone, earlier that evening in that dank, ill-lit hallway.

Yes. Clare remembered. She felt sure she could never forget.

The painful hours spent at that hospital, just waiting helplessly for something. The moment the doctor smiled tiredly at Bullfrog and Cece and told them they could see their son. That same moment when Clare let her tears fall in a giant wave of immense relief and grateful release. Clutching her mother tightly when she finally—finally, hurriedly entered the room. And Clare tearfully thanking the good Lord, oh Sweet Jesus, thanking God that he was alright.

But most of all, she remembered Cece coming out of her son's room, her cheeks still stained with tears. Smiling at Clare, telling her that her baby boy wanted to see her.

Yes. Clare remembered. She clung to his hand, vowing to never let go of him. Her very best friend. She felt sure she would never forget.

Feel alright, remember how to put back the light in my eyes