AN: This chapter has NOTHING to do with the actual episode "All Falls Down" Part I or II.

Warnings:

Disclaimer: I don't own Degrassi

Chapter Eleven

All Falls Down

The doorbell rings and Eli is surprised to see Clare on his front porch. Again.

"Taking up stalking?" he tries to joke like he used to. Like they used to. "It works better when you don't ring the bell." He wonders if she can tell that his smile is a fake, slapped onto his face like a sticker.

Of course she can. She knows him far too well.

"Tell me." Her voice is just the same as the last time she stood on his porch, demanding answers she's not sure she wants. He peels off the sticker-smile and replaces it with honest weariness. He doesn't want to tell her. To confirm what she already knows in the fartherest corner of her heart.

"I don't want to." Try honesty for a change, Eli, he goads himself. Try it when you know it won't cut it this time.

"Eli." She says his name the way he can't stand. All disappointed and sad and he knows that she knows he can't do anything but give in when she does that.

And it's worse, because he can see she's already figured it out. Or at least part of it. That it was Fitz. She knows that Fitz did it; she just doesn't know what he's done.

"You don't want to know." He tries to convey the truth with every word, tries to make her realize that's she's wrong and that what's been done to him is monstrous beyond words. Something that should never taint her beautiful innocence.

"It was Fitz, wasn't it?" She prods, realizing he's not going to come out and say it. "You were fighting with him. Again."

She takes his silence as confirmation. She's only half-wrong, he reasons, why not let her believe the lie a little longer. Clare's a bright girl; she'll figure it out soon enough.

"You have to tell the police." There's that righteousness in her eyes again.

"No." He can't. He'd rather die.

"He could have killed you, Eli!" She cries out, frustrated because she can't understand why he's being stubborn about this. And he can't make himself tell her. "You could have died."

"No."

"This is no time for pride!" She looks like she's almost ready to hit him, to knock some sense into him the old fashioned way. He'd let it happen.

He always lets it happen.

He let Julia die.

He let Fitz touch him.

Hurt him.

Rape him.

He let it all happen.

It's all his fault.

"It's not about pride..." He can't force the rest of the words past his lips. Words that tell her that he thinks he might love her and words that tell her he's terrified of everything in his life and words that whisper the truth about that night.

"Then what's it about, Eli?" The words are hushed, and she's on the verge of crying because she doesn't understand. He can see the tears shining, unshed, in her beautiful blue eyes. Because he can't make her understand.

It's not about pride.

It's about shame.

She stares into his eyes, searching for the answers he's refusing to yield. But he stays silent. She shakes her head, tears starting slip free as she turns away from him. She starts to walk away from him and it's deja vu all over again.

His hand around her elbow, swinging her to face him. Blue eyes, crying, and green eyes, refusing to do the same, clash. He pulls her to him, closer than she's ever been before, closer than he's ever let her get. He hides his face between her shoulder and neck.

Something warm and wet slides down his cheek and crashes onto her skin. He squeezes his eyes closed, trying to will the stupid-foolish-useless-pointless tears away.

"Rape." Eli whispers that word, the one that tore his world apart at the seams and then set it on fire. She stiffens in his arms, surprised-shocked-horrified-scared, then she's holding him. Arms wrap around Eli's slender frame while he shakes-quivers-trembles-quakes. "...He raped me..."

And there's nothing for him to do but hold her back, clinging desperately to Clare, and cry. Hands clutching at her back, begging without words for her to stay. Begging for her to stay.

And she does.