AN: Hey! It's been a while since I updated this fic, but I'm working on writing new chapters now! Also, as I'm writing this I just remembered something else from the timeline. Jake and Glen did move to Toronto and they're still family friends with the Edwards family, but Glen and Helen obviously have nothing romantic going on since Helen and Randall are still married.

Disclaimer: I don't own Degrassi or it's characters, just this idea.

Chapter Four: On The Wrong Side

Clare didn't remember falling asleep at all, but waking up on the park bench was not comfortable. For a split second Clare almost thought that she was waking up in her and Darcy's childhood bedroom where she'd spent nearly every night since she was a few months old. Almost. It was that between place, where she'd forgotten everything that had happened earlier that day; finding out she was pregnant, telling Eli, breaking up with Eli, her parents finding out, being kicked out moving in with the Torres family.

It's the vibrating of her phone, that's sticking out of her pocket and nearly falling out of the small jean jacket pocket, indicating an incoming phone call that settles in that Clare's not in her bedroom. That she's not even in her new bedroom. That she's still in the middle of the park she walked to after abruptly leaving the Simpson-Nelson household. Picking up the phone she looks at the screen and sees Adam's smiling face on the screen greeting her.

"Hey Adam." Clare greets after she slides the answer button over and tapping her free hand on her knee as she clears her throat.

The reverb sound that comes from a car speaker before Clare hears a response. However, she's sure that it's not going to be Adam's voice on the line and she's right. "Clare Edwards! I opened my home to you and this is the thanks I get, it is nearly one in the morning young lady. Mr. Simpson said you left his house hours ago. Where are you?"

"Mrs. Torres, I'm so sorry." Clare gets up from the bench and looks around trying to find the street signs and the lights on the sidewalk to see where she is. "I walked to the park after I left Mr. Simpson's house...I was...I got overwhelmed and scared. I kept thinking that I had to tell him about the pregnancy because he's the principal and he's going to need to know so we can arrange how my schedule will work but then I was thinking about how that would go and what everybody would think and..." Clare stops herself from talking by taking in a deep breath to calm herself down and shakes her head. "Mrs. Torres, I am so sorry about this. I was sitting on the park bench and I must have fallen asleep." She was near tears as she spoke, it had been a rough day for her.

"Clare..." Audra sighs, and Clare knows that she's in for a talking to like her own parents would give her if she were still at home. Maybe it would be even worse because Audra wasn't her mother and she didn't have to take her in when she'd done so so selflessly to help Clare out. "We've been worried sick, Clare. Omar's in his car driving around too. Drew's back at the house and-"

"I'm in the car too, Clare." Adam cuts his mom off.

"Just go to the sidewalk Clare, and we'll find you soon. When we get home the three of us will have a long conversation about everything that's going on here. And don't hang up the phone, alright."

"Alright." Clare says with a nod of her head, walking to the sidewalk and staying on the phone as she does so, making sure to go towards one of the street lights so that she can see everything around her and that whenever someone drives by she'll be seen too. It's a few minutes of silence with Clare not knowing what to say, and keeping herself from saying I'm sorry about a dozen more times, until she finally sees a car pulling down the street.

"Clare, sweetheart, I think we see you. I'm going to flash the lights now, okay?" Audra comments and Clare nods her head as she sees the lights flash on the car that's making its way down the street.

"I see the light flashing." Clare replies.

The car pulls up to a stop and parks and Clare gets into the backseat. "I cannot apologize enough, Mrs. Torres. I wish there was a better way to say it, I could write an apology letter to you and Mr. Torres if that would make it better? I don't even remember falling asleep. I was tired and I was just so worried about everything with the pregnancy and thinking about everything that I'm going to need to do and all of these things. I have the beginnings of a list in my phone." Clare explains, shaking her head and tapping through the notes app on her phone and looking at the checklist she'd begun making earlier in that day. "I must have fallen asleep on the bench thinking about everything and I feel terrible about that." Clare looks up at Audra when she begins driving, pulling away from the curb and starts driving back toward the house. "You don't know what it means to me, you letting me into the guest room. Opening up the doors to your home like I'm a member of your family. I...I never expected my parents to react the way that they did, though. Dad kicking me out..telling me if I wanted to raise the baby I'd have to do it on my own." Clare wipes at her eyes with a sigh, blinking away her tears and stopping herself for a few moments to collect her thoughts. "Maybe if my sister was around she'd have something to say about dealing with them during something complicated like this, but she's off trying to save the world and doesn't answer emails often and I just don't know what to do and have I mentioned how sorry I am? Because I am."

"Did i forget to mention Clare tends to ramble when she's nervous?" Adam explains to his mom before turning to glance back at Clare before adding, in a more teasing tone, "Actually, she just rambles in general."

Clare sticks her tongue out at Adam before turning her focus back on Audra.

"We'll talk about this when we get home. Adam, text your father and brother from my phone and tell him that we found Clare and we're on our way home." Audra explains, gesturing to her purse as she turns down the street and heads back toward the house.

The rest of the car ride is silent and Clare isn't sure what to think. Should she worry about being grounded? Kicked out of the house? A second house in two days, that might be a new record, honestly. But really, she doesn't know what to think. From all she's heard about Audra from Adam and Drew's discussions of punishments and what she knew about her from the ongoings of the aftermath of Vegas Night. Clare isn't sure what's true, and what might come of everything that she's getting herself into now.

Thankfully, it's not silent when the three of them pull up to the house and walk in. The door to the basement is open and the sounds of a loud video game can be heard from the front door of the house when they walk in. Audra, Adam, and Clare hang up their coats and put away their shoes.

From then Audra looks at Clare, "We'll talk when Omar gets home." she explains and then walks back to the basement door and knocks loudly on the door and yelling down to Drew that they were home with Clare, telling him to turn off the video game. When that didn't work, she makes her way down the stairs to repeat herself.

"Your first night at the Torres house and you're already causing so much trouble?" Adam asks, a slight chuckle as he tries to lighten his best friend's mood. He can tell it's not working though, and he nudges Clare's arm with his own and sighs. "Clare, we were just worried. You weren't answering your phone or anything and mom naturally goes to the worst case scenario. You're just lucky that we were all able to talk her down from calling the police."

"Oh, please, like mom doesn't have Dave's dad on speed dial." Drew comments as he and Audra reemerge from the basement.

"I do not have Officer Turner on speed dial. I have the number of one of my son's friend's fathers in my phone who happens to be a police officer." Audra says, making her way to the kitchen and putting over the tea kettle. "We're having a family meeting when your father gets home and then tomorrow Clare, we'll go and look at some paint samples at the hardware store to see what we can do with that guest room upstairs."

"We all have to be awake for this?" Drew groans, looking towards the basement door. "C'mon, I was this close to beating that level, mom!"

"Andrew!" Audra scolds.

"You mean you're going to let me stay?" Clare asked quietly, looking up at the woman worriedly biting her bottom lip and shifting her weight on her feet.

Audra's face softens as she drops her hands down onto the counter from grabbing mugs from the cabinet, "Clare, of course, you're going to stay here. We're going to talk about the rules and you'll definitely be grounded for at least two weeks. We'll be setting up some doctors appointments for you, too. I guess we should call your parents and talk to Mr. Simpson about your address being changed over, but this is all things that can be sorted out in the next few days." she explains, turning back to fixing a cup of tea for everybody as the door opens up and Omar walks inside and puts his things away.

"Alright, now that we're all home can we get this "family meeting" over with." Drew asks with a shrug of his shoulders as he heads over to the couch in the living room to sit down.

Adam nods his head, dragging Clare with him towards the couch to sit down by Drew as Omar turned to help Audra with the tea before taking a seat on the chairs on the opposite side of the couch.

"How are you feeling Clare?" Omar asks, picking up his cup of tea and stirring for a moment before taking a sip.

Clare adds milk and sugar to her cup and takes a sip of her tea before answering. "Considering the news I've gotten today I think I'm doing pretty alright. I'm so sorry for the scare I gave you and Mrs. Torres, though."

"Clare, I think if you're living with us you can call us Audra and Omar from time to time." Omar comments with a nod of his head, before clearing his throat and turning to Audra to look and see what she wanted to say.

"I agree. Before you got home I was telling Clare that we'll need to explain the ground rules a bit more." Audra's hands are around her mug of tea as she looks between her husband and the kids on the couch explaining what she explained earlier. "And that she'll be grounded for what happened tonight."

"Absolutely. Clare, you won't be held to a different standard while you live here. You'll be treated just like one of our sons, expected to follow the rules. Do chores like Adam and Drew, follow curfew, call us and let us know where you'll be. Tell to us your after school activities schedule. Car privileges are just that, privileges." Omar explains. "I do know a few lawyers through work, who might be able to help us with paperwork to get everything settled with you and your parents."

"That...I appreciate that. But maybe...is it possible to hold off on the paperwork?" Clare asks, blinking and looking down at the mug of tea in her hands. "I mean, I would like to hope that maybe they could come through for me with everything..." She trails off, shaking her head. It's unsure if it's the blind faith she has that her parents might come around no matter what due to their love for their daughter, or just hope that things might work out in the end.

"Clare, this paperwork is more for the purposes of you living here in the meantime while everything settles down with your parents. We both hope that they might come around for your sake as well, but nobody knows for sure how things will turn out. This paperwork would guarantee that you'll be able to live here and we'll be able to be guardians to you. We can call your parents and discuss this with them tomorrow at a better hour." Audra explains kindly to Clare, nodding her head as she talks and looking toward Omar while she talks. "No matter what happens, we're all here for you. You're like one of our own, after everything that's happened since we moved here and you helping out with Adam this past summer and just being here. Clare, you're like family to all of us. We want you to know that we'll help you."

"Thank you. You have no idea what it means to me to hear that."

"Okay, well, I'm getting out of here before mom pulls us into a group hug. Goodnight Clare, get some sleep in the bed upstairs and not on a park bench this time." Drew says as he gets up from the couch, laughing and nudging Clare's arm with a smirk, ruffling her hair before going to put his empty mug back in the kitchen and saying goodnight to everybody else and heading up the stairs.

And the next day would be better. It definitely would, Clare thought, as she helped Audra clean up the tea mugs before getting settled in for bed that night.

Of course, sleeping in a new place wasn't comfortable. Clare was so used to being in the same room her whole life, and had only just gotten to have it all to herself the past couple of years after Darcy had moved to Kenya and started helping make the world a better place ( or whatever the cheesy phrasing she had used in her first couple of emails ). The guest room was bland, not lived in, and completely different than everything she'd been used to her whole life. Clare loved her room at home, and falling asleep in the Torres guest room she'd realized just how much she left there. The posters she'd had on the wall, the photographs she'd stuck all over, even some of her books lining the bookcases she couldn't possibly fit in everything she'd taken with her now. Clothes, both her's and Darcy's, too. There were probably journals, old notebooks from her childhood that she'd written in strewn all over the back of her closet too that she'd left behind and forgotten. In all honesty, the only ones she'd grabbed were the ones from high school, any ones that dealt with her and boyfriends. She knew that anything else her parents found would be more ammunition for their anger, and given how angry both of them had been when she left she didn't need to add fuel to that fire.

Eventually Clare finally got to sleep, but it was a fitful sleep filled with half remembered dreams of pregnancy and anger and friends that had her waking up to take in deep breaths.

Still, a day before having to go back to school and actually face everything in person. Everything meaning seeing Eli in person, though the only class she would have to see him in would be her grade 12 AP English class. Otherwise she would be able to avoid him fairly well, thankfully. She'd have to tell Alli though, and Jenna, as soon as she got into school. If there was even a risk of the two of them hearing from somebody else.

Clare's morning is filled with measuring the bedroom with Audra and then heading out to get supplies and looking at samples for what they could paint the bedroom. Clare isn't sure she's still actually allowed to be painting the bedroom any color, but she's almost sure she will not be picking the color pink as she lived with that for too many years in her old bedroom. But she's glad to have the day out with Audra, getting to know everything and learning more about the family and her as well. Since it's just the two of them at the hardware store, Clare is able to get to talk to her and open up.

After all the time that she's spent with Adam and at the Torres house, Clare had never gotten to know Audra or the other Torres family members more than a couple of dinners and movie nights and events like that. This is new territory for all of them, though.

"I'll drop you kids off at school in the morning and we'll have a meeting with Mr. Simpson, explain the situation to him." Audra explains to Clare as they unload the car and head into the house.

"The whole situation?" Clare asks, grabbing a couple of bags and pulling them into her arms. "Because, I was thinking that maybe we should wait, until after I've seen a doctor first before telling the school anything. I mean, I know Mr. Simpson personally too but telling him in the whole...principal capacity I think I'd like to wait. If that's...alright?"

Audra thinks for a couple of moments as she opens the front door and leads the way up the spare room, putting the bag she's carrying down on the ground before turning to look at Clare. "Alright. After the meeting tomorrow morning I'll call the doctor's office and see if we can get you an appointment in the next couple of days. Now, let's see what we can do with this room, shall we?"

AN: Thanks for reading! I've definitely got a couple of ideas for what to do with the story, but it took me a while to get back into the swing of things. One of the main reasons I'm writing again is because I started rewatching the show, and now I've got muse again. Like I said, I've got ideas for the story, so I'm just trying to get them all settled and in a good order for everything too. I hope you liked this chapter!