A/N: Can I just say how much I love you all? You completely blew me away. I've been writing on and off since I was fourteen and I have never gotten a response like that on a single chapter. Thank you so much. I can't say it enough. There were almost as many favorites as there were reviews as there were alerts and you guys...are just wonderful. You're my new favorites.

I have to warn you: In my opinion, this one is a whole lot weaker than my first one and that's because I wasn't too stoked on writing some of these parts. I wanted to keep the entire collection light and happy but I felt like this part had to be included, so here it is. Part One, at least. It got really long and Part Two was being difficult but I HAD to update. There's not really and Eli, just Clare and her mom. The next one centers on Morty, so I swear that one will be super cute, super funny, full of Eli, and way better than this one. Also, do you guys know Emily Gilmore? Cause that's who I kind of modeled Helen off of.

It Hits The Fan

The Bhandari's backyard was decorated like they were expecting to play host to the princess of some foreign land and not a handful of graduating seniors from Degrassi's community school and their families. That was Clare's first thought when she walked through the back doors with her mother and step-family at her heels.

The last day of Clare's required schooling was yesterday, and now she could be done if she wanted to be. After thirteen years of school she really wanted to be done, to take a break, to just lay down and become one with the couch. But she knew, of course, that that was not an option. By this time next week, she'd have her diploma in hand and if she ever found the courage to tell her mother, she'd be moving into the apartment she sometimes shared with her boyfriend. And then she'd start college and her adult life would begin.

It was terrifying but also exhilarating.

"Clare, move it," Her mother said from behind her. "I haven't seen Dhara and Arman in ages."

Clare gave her a tight smile and stepped aside. Alli's parents were throwing a barbecue for their daughter's friends and families and against her better judgement Clare was going to tell her mother about moving in with Eli today. Well, at some point. Maybe.

That's why Eli wasn't with her. That, and Helen and Eli proved that they were like oil and water early on. The memory of a particularly awkward, tense dinner nearly sent her into panic to this day. Even when Clare wasn't doing something her mom would think was insane "for" Eli or with him, Helen just generally disliked him. And Eli wasn't fond of her for it.

Clare watched her mom start an animated conversation with the Bhandaris, and vaguely acknowledged Michael and the kids joining groups of their own before setting out to find Alli. Alli would at least attempt to calm her down a little.

xxx

Helen had been making her rounds, greeting all of Clare's friends parents politely, talking about how nice it was that the weather had held and how old they all felt now that their children were graduating. Helen being Helen, she found it pertinent to gloat a little about her daughter being the salutatorian and her husband's job and her step-children completely outshining all the other kids in the end-of year recital last week.

What seemed like eons later, she ended up back at the buffet table with the only two adults at the party whose company she actually enjoyed: Dhara and Arman Bhandari.

After more pleasant conversation and a flute of champagne Helen sighed and said, "I just wanted to thank you for letting Clare stay with you so many nights. After the divorce I think she might've started to feel a little out of sorts at home."

"Of course, Clare is always welcome. We're beginning to miss her." Dhara said, sipping her drink.

Helen laughed good-naturedly, "She'd have to leave some time for you to miss her."

Mrs. Bhandari gave her a confused look after glancing at her husband, "We haven't had Clare over in weeks."

"Dhara, how many drink have you had tonight? She's been ping ponging from here to Gracie's for months. She's barely been home. . . ."

"Helen," Arman started, touching her elbow, "I don't mean to start any trouble, but Clare hasn't been staying here."

"Of course she has," Helen said, even though she was starting to think that maybe-just maybe-they knew what they were talking about.

"I think maybe you should talk with Clare." Dhara said before steering her and her husband away from the simmering woman.

Helen was standing by the buffet completely awestruck. She could feel a slow boiling anger bubbling from within her, but her head wasn't as quick to process the information. Her daughter said she was staying at the Bhandari's house most nights, but the Bhandaris said they haven't seen her in what could have been months. But that would mean. . .that Clare lied to her. Clare doesn't lie, she thought to herself. That was just something that didn't happen. Clare didn't know know how to lie! And, anyway, if she wasn't staying here, where was she staying?

That's when the lightbulb went off in her head.

xxx

Clare was standing in a small cluster of friends laughing when her arm was jerked backwards so hard she almost dropped her drink. She looked up, alarmed, to see her mom's face in a mask of thinly veiled anger and disbelief.

"Mom," She briefly looked over her shoulder to see her friends had scattered, "What are you-"

Helen put her hand up to stop her, "Don't lie to me, Clare."

"I didn't even say-"

"Don't lie to me, Clare. Where have you been staying?" Her voice was hard, and her arms were crossed tightly over her chest.

Clare's eyes widened into saucers as she shamefully tried to talk her way out from under her mothers cold stare, "What are you talking about? Mom I've-"

"Do yourself a favor and tell me the truth. Alli's parents have already told me you haven't been staying here. So I'll ask one more time; Clare, where have you been staying?"

She sighed. This was not the way she wanted to do this. She wanted to calmly and rationally tell her mother that she wanted to move out of the house. She wanted pie charts and pro/con lists and to try to make it sound like a good thing. The last thing on her agenda was having her mom finding out that she lied to her. Especially from someone who wasn't her.

"Please don't get mad," She was cut off by the expression on her mother's face. Yeah, this was a lot scarier than she thought it would be. She couldn't remember the last time her mom looked this angry. Defeated, yes. Peeved, definitely. But to see the rage building behind her eyes, that was something new. Something that Clare wasn't prepared for.

"A little late for that, don't you think?" Helen's foot started tapping, but the rest of her was immobile and for the first time ever, her daughter was intimidated by her.

"Okay, so. . .the thing is. . .I've been trying to tell you for awhile now. . . Okay." Clare's hands were wringing of their own accord and her eyes were darting around, trying to look at anything but her mother's face. "I'm, uh, moving out."

Was that a steel hand wrapped around her throat? It must've been. There is no way that that choking feeling was natural. The truth does not set you free. It tries to suffocate you.

Helen's arms fell to her sides and her eyes nearly fell out of her head, "Excuse me?"

She looked around, realizing she might as well have been talking into a microphone she grabbed Clare's wrist, dragging her through the crowd and into the unoccupied Bhandari kitchen.

"Excuse me?" She repeated.

Clare paused, words forming in her mouth, but they wouldn't voice themselves. She didn't know how to say it, other than to blurt it out, "I've been staying with Eli. After graduation I'm moving in with him."

"What!"

"I'm moving in-"

"I heard what you said!" Helen ran her hands through her hair, trying to get a grip on herself before her body started acting on impulse, "You-you certainly are not! I highly doubt his parents are just going to let you move in."

"He's been emancipated for the last two years." Clare said in a small voice, shrinking back into the cabinets behind her.

"What!" This time Clare stayed quiet and just let her mom continue. If at any point she felt regret about deceiving her mom to play house with Eli, it was when she thought about her reaction when she would eventually have to find out. She knew she'd feel shame, and she knew she'd remember that she was only seventeen and it wasn't exactly appropriate to do what she was doing.

Fighting with her mom-talking to her mom on most days-made her feel like a child who acted like an adult in the body of a teenager. It made her feel incredibly small and stupid but she couldn't let that get in the way. If she allowed this feeling to stop her every time she felt it, she would never grow up.

Suddenly, Helen stood up perfectly straight, staring into Clare's eyes she said in a voice quiet as death, "I raised you to be a good Christian girl, Clare. Good girls don't spend the night with boys unsupervised, so why. . .?"

"Mom, can we not talk about this here?" She said, her entire face heating up.

"Is there something to talk about?" She took Clare's silence for an answer and would have burst into tears if she wasn't so ashamed, so angry, "You are not to see Eli again. Do you understand me?"

"Mom! No! You can't just decide for me."

"I just did. And it's final. That relationship is over. Now come on, we're going home."

"No," Clare held her ground and Helen turned around, astonished.

"Clare. Now. We'll discuss this at home." Helen reached for Clare's arm with intentions of bodily removing her from the premises, but Clare jerked back, her entire body contorted with frustration she didn't know what to do with.

"No. You've made every decision for me for as long as I can remember. You don't get a say in this. I'm not breaking up with him and I am moving in with him after graduation."

"I said no."

Clare's chin lifted defiantly, "It doesn't matter. It's my choice and I've made it."

Helen saw that she needed to switch gears and promptly attempted to lay on the guilt, "I can't even look at you right now. Who are you? Where did my Clare go?"

"She's right here. She just grew up, and you were too busy to see it."

"No. I was never too busy for you. I've been here the entire time. It's your father who-"

"Stop! Just stop. Dad left, fine. And you know, that might not have been so bad as long as I still had my mom, but I didn't. You were here, but you were too busy with your life and your new family to notice I needed you. Eli was there for me. And you don't get to take that away from me."

"I'm sorry you feel that way, but I'm your mother and I forbid it."

"It doesn't matter. I wasn't asking your permission. It's been over a year that I've been basically living on my own and you didn't even notice. I don't think you have the right to tell me what I can and cannot do anymore."

Helen was taken aback at Clare's words. She looked like she meant it. She looked as angry as she had felt not five minutes ago. And for the first time, she felt like she was looking at a young adult and not her youngest child. This person before her was a young woman and somehow she couldn't remember when that happened.

"Fine," She said, smoothing out her skirt, "you've made your point. You're an adult. If you want to live with your boyfriend, go live with your boyfriend."

"Mom." Clare sighed, taking a step towards her mom, but she took an equal sized step backwards.

"No, no. You're right. I'm a terrible mother. Go. Move out. Get away from your terrible, negligent mother."

"Mom," She said, her voice harder than it was before.

"Clare."

Clare felt a twinge of regret in her heart. She realized she hurt her mother's feelings and even if she meant what she said, she didn't mean to do that. She felt like she should apologize but she couldn't. She didn't have anything to say at all.

Neither of them seemed to, so they just stared into each others eyes for longer than they had in months, if not, years. Neither could look away. And neither could recognize the person staring back at them.

How can you be with someone everyday of your entire life and still not have any idea who they are?

How can you look into your daughters eyes and realize you have no idea how she grew up, where the time went, who she was, where were you? How did you miss it?

The moment was broken when Michael came in and saw the scene the mother and daughter made, having a stand-off in the Bhandari's kitchen. He cleared his throat, taking them out of their trance, "Is everything alright in here?"

"Everything's just fine, Michael. I was just coming to get you. I think it's time we headed home." Helen forced a close lipped smile.

"I'll go get the girls and meet you at the car, then." He said, ever the obedient husband.

"Clare, I'll see you tomorrow to get your things?" She said once Michael was gone.

"You're leaving me here?" She asked, pushing back tears. She didn't know if they were angry or sad but they were definitely building.

"I didn't think you'd have a problem with that. Just call your boyfriend to come get you." There was acid in her voice and that convinced her that there was no way she was sad. She was angry. And betrayed. "So, tomorrow?"

"Yeah," She nodded absently and cleared her throat, "Yes."

"Alright then," Helen said nodding Michael and her stepdaughters towards the front door and away from Clare.

She left almost as soon as they did. She couldn't just stand still and let these feelings eat away at her, so without saying goodbye to anyone, she started walking to Eli's-and now her-apartment. It felt wrong. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. But then again, how could she have thought it wasn't going to end up in any other way? Was she really deluded enough to hope that this wouldn't push the already precarious mother-daughter relationship over the edge, to lay in complete shambles at the bottom?

xxx

Clare and Eli woke up practically at the crack of dawn the next morning. After a night of listening to Clare rant and rave and pull herself back from the edge of an emotional breakdown repeatedly, he'd had a surprisingly restful nights sleep. Clare, on the other hand did not. She spent a lot of the time staring at the ceiling and justifying her anger.

By the time the sun was up and it was an appropriate time to come calling, she'd convinced herself that everything was okay and it didn't matter.

Eli saw through it. He knew her mother disapproving had hurt her. He knew hearing that her mother didn't recognize her had been a blow. She knew her mom didn't know her on a personal level anymore, she said so constantly, but to hear her say it had taken the wind out of Clare's sails.

By the time Clare and Eli had packed most of her things into Morty, she felt more like she was being kicked out than she was leaving on her own accord. Her mother barely said two words to her when they got there. She had broken down boxes waiting in a pile inside Clare's bedroom door and stayed in living room, drinking coffee and watching cartoons with Sera and Lilly while the couple sifted through Clare's childhood.

On her last trip out to the hearse, Clare stopped in the doorway to the living room and waiting for her mom to look up and notice her, but if she did she didn't let on, "Mom?"

Helen looked up, distractedly, like she hadn't even realized Clare was in the house prior, "Yes?"

"I left a ticket to the ceremony on the table by the door, okay?" Her mom just gave her a blank stare, "To. . .my graduation?"

"Oh. Right. I didn't know I was still allowed to go to that."

"You're my mom. Of course you are," She paused, "I want you there."

"I'll see what I can do."

Clare bit the inside of her cheek trying to get what she had to say to come out softly, "I may have lied to you and I know your ego is bruised because of it, but you know I'm a good kid. I'm responsible. In a few months I'll be eighteen anyway. So, can we please put this behind us?"

She looked like she wanted to say something. Her mouth even twitched a little, but she just turned back to the television and pretended that Clare wasn't there, which made the girl in question throw her hands up and walk, swiftly and heavily towards the door, "Fine. I'll see you if I see you."

She wrenched the door open and slammed it behind her with more force than necessary, leaving her misty eyed mother in the house she'd never live in again.

xxx

Three days before her graduation, Clare was hovering over the mountain of laundry that was obstructing the view of her bed, trying how best to attack the folding when her cell phone rang. The last time she picked it up was yesterday, when her father called to say he wouldn't be able to make it back to Canada for the occasion. He said there was a work crisis and he simply couldn't get away but Clare knew he was just avoiding her mother. She almost didn't even blame him. All in all, it was shaping up to be the worst week in recent history.

But she flipped the phone open blindly, and was assaulted by a very happy, very girly voice that she was actually glad to hear.

"Mom tells me you're living in sin with some hearse driving sewer rat with greasy hair and dingy black clothes? Her words, not mine," Darcy half laughed over the phone but Clare could still hear the judgement in her voice. She was just trying to be the cool, accepting big sister. Which she did appreciate. She'd had enough disapproving interactions with her parents in the last week.

"Hello to you too. And he's not a sewer rat, Darcy, you know that. He has a name and he's been my boyfriend for over two years," She got really tired of reminding everyone of that.

"I know, honey," she sighed, "Just be careful, okay? You're still young and you aren't even married-"

"Darcy." She was stern. This was not up for negotiation. Clare's life was Clare's life now. No one else's. She wasn't in a cold war with the woman who gave her life for nothing.

"Okay, okay. I get it. So how is Eli?" Darcy said, stressing that she actually did know Eli's name. And that she didn't call just to warn her sister about life's cruel sense of humor.

"He's good. Really good. The paper's actually been publishing some of his short stories in the Sunday edition." Clare gushed, full of pride and eager to have a happy conversation. Something she'd been lacking lately.

"That's amazing. You have to send me some copies, okay?"

"Sure thing. Oh! And. . .you'll never guess! I finally got him trained to put the dirty clothes in the hamper instead of on the floor. Occasionally he even puts them in the washer, but we're still working on the dryer part of the process," Clare said feigning seriousness. Well, sort of.

Darcy was laughing, "Baby steps, I guess. When am I ever gonna meet him, anyway?"

And thus the light, joking conversation was put on pause.

This was another topic that exasperated Clare to no end. Darcy hadn't been home in years, since she left for Kenya. She just kept going and going and going. There was always someone out there for Darcy, specifically, to save leaving no room for the sisters to have any face time. The last time they'd seen each other in person Clare was still a runty little piglet with glasses and a fondness for wearing uniforms to school. Of course, they'd sent pictures back and forth and had numerous phone conversations but that didn't matter. Sometimes a girl just needed to loaf on the couch all day, while watching movies and eating ice-cream with her big sister.

"I don't know, Darce. Maybe if you stopped trying to repent long enough to come home for half a second. . .it's not like I'm hiding him from you." She said, tossing a neatly folded washcloth on top of her small pile.

"Hey. That's not fair," Darcy sounded genuinely hurt on the other line.

Clare sighed, "I know. I'm sorry. I just miss you."

"I know, Clare Bear, I miss you too."

"You're coming home for my graduation, right?" Clare hedged. She'd held off asking for months, trying not to get her hopes up only for some kid's last minute case of Malaria to sidetrack her sister. Her dad bailed, her mother's attendance was up in the air, and she needed at least one blood relative who loved and accepted her there.

"Of course! I wouldn't miss it for the world," She paused for a second and Clare could practically hear her getting nostalgic, "I can't believe you're already graduating. My baby sister. . .and you're living with a boy too."

The sisters spent the next hour on the phone, laughing.

A/N: I know. Crappy place to leave off. I'm sorry. Like I said, you guys are totally amazing and you deserved a better chapter a lot sooner than I gave it, but next chapter was a lot more fun for me to write and I have a feeling you're all going to like it.

Also, again, any ideas whatsoever, let me know. And! If you know what Clare's dad's name is, please tell me. I couldn't find it anywhere and it's driving me crazy. :)