Eli walked into Clare's room. He held up his wrist to check the time. 6:03, a little off schedule, but oh well. "Clare . . ." he says in a soothing tone. When she makes no movement, he takes the whistle hanging from his neck and blows hard on it, causing Clare to practically jump out of her bed. Once she adjusts to being woken up early, she narrows her eyes, trying to get used to the light. "Care to explain why you're here at," she turned to check her bedside clock. "6:00 in the morning?"

Eli rolled his eyes. "Please babe, like I would wake you up at six. It's 6:03."

Clare jutted out her chin. "Well excuse me. Now, do you wanna tell me what you're doing here at 6:03?" she growled.

Eli grinned cheekily. "That's the morning bird I love, now, I figured since you're out of the hospital we could work on some PT."

She furrowed her brow. "PT?"

"Uh, chyaa Clare, PT. Like, physical therapy? I hear all the cool kids are doing it." He said, winking.

"Okay, I understand that but why right now? And it's freezing outside, this is Canada, not Texas! Besides, its winter break and I've finally caught up with school . . ." Clare whined, falling back onto her bad and burrowing her face into her pillow.

Eli mock sighed. "I guess we'll have to do this the hard way." He mumbled, loud enough for her to hear. Before she could protest, though, he blew hard on his whistle multiple times. He got out the little megaphone he had been stowing away in his pants and started yelling into it. "LET'S MOVE ON, COME ON COME ON, MOVE IT!" he boomed, in drill sergeant-esque nature.

Before Clare could protest though, Clare's mother ran in. "Whasgoinon?" she mumbled, her eyes almost all the way closed. Eli put his hands on her shoulders, steering her out of Clare's room. "It's okay Mrs. Edwards, this is just a dream." He said in a soothing tone. Her mom nodded and turned to walk away when she crashed into the doorframe. Unfazed, she moved over a little and made her way back to bed.

Clare scowled and moved out of the bed to get dressed, knowing that Eli would put up a fight if she stayed in bed. She noticed Eli sitting in her swivel chair, his hands clasped together.

"Um, I'm about to get dressed, so if you wanna leave . . ." she said, not really asking a question.

Eli just grinned mischievously back at her. "Hmmm, nah. I'm fine."

Clare raised her eyebrows. "Really, you wanna see the scrapes and skin of the bottom of my amputated leg?" she threatened, knowing that it grossed Eli out to no length when she mentioned the goriness of the bottom of her right leg.

Eli grimaced and quickly stood up; almost sprinting into the hall.

….

It was snowing, it was freezing cold, and all Eli was doing was standing in one place holding a timer. Clare was pondering on this thought as she crutched her way around the block for the third time. Eli kept making her go around trying to get a better time with each round. Of course, every time she passed Eli he had that same goofy grin on, the same grin that used to make Clare's heart melt.

Right now though, there was nothing that could melt any of her body parts right now, as the snow was flowing everywhere. She was on the other side of the block, where Eli could not see as he was on the opposite side.

She was still mumbling inaudible things under her breath when she felt a sharp pain in her right knee, causing her to fall. Stunned, she lay on the ground and held her leg. She had not been using it at all in this exercise, and it was only through the copious amounts of pain that she realized something might be terribly wrong.

She tried to stand up, a little sliver of hope that she could reach Eli, but that was all crushed when the pain came along again; only stronger. The only thing she could compare this pain was to the pain she felt when the truck smashed into her and she had gotten thrown through the windshield. She could remember clearly the way the hard glass shattered when it met her front, the way she was picking out pieces of glass while laying on the street.

The only thing she thought of doing was too put ice on her knee. The pain had been making tears stream violently down Clare's face as she openly sobbed. Her mouth was slightly open so she could taste the saltiness of her tears. The snow upon impact only made things feel a fraction better. The cold of the snow made the knee numb on the outside; but still a fire on the outside.

The doctors told her that it was a damn lucky miracle that they had somehow saved her knee, and Clare thought about how they would probably have to work on it again after this.

She was sobbing so hard now; calling Eli's name, hoping that somehow he could hear her from this far away. He was probably standing there, looking around with his nose red from the cold, his eyes squinting so they could sustain their moisture against the harsh wind. He probably thought that she had given up and started walking.

Clare called out his name once more and when she got no reply, she laid down on the ground, unable to move, and unable to call for help. After what seemed like hours though, Eli came jogging around the corner, but when he saw Clare in a crumpled heap, he began running as fast as he could to get to her. Once he reached her, he shook her hard to see if she was still conscious. When she lifted her head up, and he saw her blue eyes greatly contrasted with the red lining of the after effect of tears he scooped her up along with her crutches and walked as fast as he could to Clare's house.

It was still too early in the morning, so he started up some hot chocolate for Clare. He walked back up to where she was laying; being kept warmly in the blankets Eli had rummaged through their hall closet to find. "Clare," he said softly, adding some smoothness to his voice. "You're gonna have to tell me what happened."

Clare wiped at her eyes. "I was crutching and I-I got this h-horrible pain in my knee." She stuttered, still kind of frozen from the gripping weather. "It was really bad, so bad that I couldn't get you." Eli nodded solemnly. Sudden an idea occurred to him.

He began peeling off the sheets and said in another soothing voice, "How does your knee feel right now?" he asked, fearing the worse.

Clare shrugged. "I don't feel anything. It's just numb. Why?"

Eli nodded, a blank look in his eyes. "Can you move your knee for me?" he watched her knee as it did nothing. Looking up to Clare, he saw that she had her brow deeply furrowed and her face began to look angry as she tried to move it.

"Clare, I think we need to go to the hospital,"

….

"Clare, we're going to have to cut the knee off." The doctor told Clare seriously.

Clare, (still hyped up from the sedatives they'd given her) nodded happily with a grin and sang, "Cut it off! Cut it off!" like a vamp song.

The doctor sighed and called into the hallway. "Can we get some nurses to handle the patient?" HE asked loudly.

Clare bounced in her seat, excited. "Is it gonna be like a par-tay? No one knows! Not even Steven Michael! Whoever that is!" she continued singing. Clare was what some people would call had low tolerance for drug. The doctor figured this out as Clare broke into song about things she saw in the room, and began wailing like an opera singer.

When two nurses shuffled into the room and set her to sleep, he began leading them the way to the operating table where he would now be removing Clare Edwards' knee.

…

Wowza, we got chalk full drama up in tharr! I want to thank tacokins for leaving me that review, and yes. I do try to come up with different things you wouldn't find on this archive. I also wanna thank ourfragilesouls (AKA, my bff) for joining and giving me her feedback through text! I will update White Van tomorrow, don't you wait!