AN: Hey y'all, I hope you're liking the chapters I'm putting out. I'm trying to be a few ahead so I can keep up to date with a schedule of posting. Now this will probably be an entrance into what I like to call the "hey this would be the in between of season 11 and season 12 if we were anything near canon" chapter(s). Sorry for the long time between updates, lots has been going on in my personal life, but I do have ideas for this story and I'd like to finish it, so that's my "resolution" for this year if you can call it that.
Disclaimer: I do not own Degrassi, I only own this idea.
Chapter Thirteen: Open Doors & Minds
Break should mean time to rest, but for Clare it means it's time to get things together. She's got a packed schedule for the time off both with the Torres family and with her mother who's coming back to town for the holiday and has been invited by Audra and Omar to partake in every Torres family tradition. Clare's still learning a lot about the Torres family, the typical nuances of the family and how they all interact. She's not sure what that'll mean for the holidays themselves, but she's still looking forward to them.
Clare's grateful to have the Torres family, and she's happy that Helen will be back in town for a couple of days especially for the semblance of normalcy that she'll have during the holiday season with her mother around, but the thought of spending too much time alone with her would have been a crushing weight that the teenager doesn't want to even consider.
As much as Clare loves her mother and has missed having her around the past weeks, given everything that's going on with her life, she knows that her mother is still adjusting to everything that Clare's decided to do with her life.
She expects at least one "long talk" with her mother about her life choices while Helen's in town.
"Hey, Adam, is there anything that your parents might like for gifts?" she questions while the two of them are sitting upstairs in Clare's bedroom. She's been showing Adam a bunch of old Edwards family photos of holidays.
"Uh…dad's hard to shop for. Drew and I usually chip in and get him a gift card to his favorite restaurant and some books or something." Adam shrugs his shoulders while he considers the question. "Mom's a bit easier. Usually she likes just about anything you give her, but she has her favorites. She likes bright colors, but not too bright. Practical stuff if you're going for clothes, but mysteries or sappy romances if you're going for books."
"Okay, cool." Clare nods her head, making a note of that. She wants to do something good for the family, since they've been so kind to take her in and help her with everything the past weeks. "What about Drew?"
"If you get Drew anything sports related you should be good." Adam laughs, looking up at Clare from the pictures he'd been looking at. "Why are you asking?"
"I want to do something nice. Everyone's been so welcoming, you know? Your family's taken me in when my own… And I just want to get them something they'll all like for the holidays, not something they'll pretend to like and turn around and go to trade in." Clare shrugs her shoulders with a sigh.
"I'm sure they'll love whatever you get them." Adam assures her with a smile.
"I've seen your brother, I'm pretty sure he won't like just anything." Clare laughs.
Adam makes a face before nodding her head, "Alright, fine. You've got a point." He laughs with Clare and looks back down at the pictures with a shrug of his shoulders. "So I know your mom is coming to visit, but have you thought about talking to your dad."
"No."
"Even with the holidays coming up…"
Clare cuts Adam off with an even more adamant, "No."
"Alright. I just want to make sure you know with everything that's going on." Adam says softly, glancing up at his friend.
"I appreciate it, really. But I'm just not ready to face my father yet. I don't know how to handle all the things he's done, you know? Sometimes I don't even want to talk to my own mother given everything, but it is what it is." Clare shrugs her shoulders.
She'd rather have some family that's shown she can trust them than have none whatsoever. Clare's mom might be a bit judgmental, but at least Helen's come around somewhat after everything that's happened and kept in touch.
"Hey, kids, can you come down here for a minute?" Audra calls from the kitchen, which makes Clare and Adam both turn to look at the clock on her nightstand. It's nowhere near time for any meal, so they shrug and get up to head downstairs. "Now please."
When they meet Drew in the hallway he looks at them and blinks, "Do you guys know anything about what she wants us downstairs for?"
Clare shrugs, "Maybe my mom's here early?"
Adam shakes his head, "Nah, she would have said something else, right? This sounds serious." Adam shrugs his shoulders and looks at Drew. "What did you do?"
Drew holds up his hands in mock surrender and raises his eyebrows at Adam, "Nothing. And there's no way grades are back this fast!"
"You do know that we can hear the three of you mumbling on the top of the staircase, right?" Audra says, walking a couple of steps before the three teens can see her looking up the staircase at them from the first floor and shaking her head. "Would you just come here. There's something your father and I have to discuss with you."
The three exchange a look and shrug their shoulders, still unsure of what it could be. As Drew said, there's certainly no way that grades are back that quickly. When the three of them get downstairs they take a seat on the couch and look between the two adults. Audra's still standing up while Omar has taken his usual seat in the side chair.
"Is this a family meeting? I'm flashing back to the time Clare was caught sleeping in the park." Drew comments to which Adam elbows his side and Drew coughs. "Geez. I'm just saying that this is like…her first official family meeting. You know, that isn't about her."
Clare leans forward and looks at Drew, "Thanks for the reminder."
Drew shrugs his shoulders in response.
Audra clears her throat and looks at the teens on the couch while she takes a seat, "Okay, so before Clare moved in we were contacted by the school. There's going to be a junior professional hockey team at the school, with students from all over the country and some even from outside of the country. Some parents have been asked to board these players, and we'd already agreed to do this." Audra explains with a nod of her head. "With everything that's been going on, we'd almost forgotten until Mr. Simpson's email with the billet information and when they'll be arriving."
"Oh…" Clare bites her lip, looking down at her lap and shaking her head. "What does…does this mean I'm going to need to…"
Audra cuts Clare off, "No. You're staying here. We're going to be converting the space in the basement into a spare room. It'll be a bit harder, since there's enough space but we don't have time to do construction, so we'll be getting a curtain for privacy until we can figure out logistics if we want to go ahead with actually converting the basement into a bedroom itself."
"So, we're getting some random hockey player?" Adam asks.
"His name is Michael Dallas, we've been in touch already. He'll move in after Boxing Day, so we have time to get everything set up downstairs, but we wanted to talk to the three of you today and make sure it would be alright." Omar explains. "He's from Guelph, he's the captain of his high school team."
"It sounds fine to me." Drew says with a shrug of his shoulders. Adam nods his head as well.
"It's fine with me. But, I don't want him to know about me…about the pregnancy, you know? I haven't even told a lot of my friends yet and I'd like to be able to do that on my own terms if that's alright with everyone." Clare answers, wringing her hands in her lap as she looks across the room at the two adults.
Audra nods her head and looks at her husband before looking at Clare. "It's your story to tell. We won't tell him unless you've told us it's alright to mention it."
"Thank you."
They're talking for a while about the logistics of it all. Both having a new person move into the house, Audra and Omar are telling them what they know about him so far. It's still not so much, mainly stuff to do with his budding hockey career and his school work as well as a few bits of his own personal life, but they fill the kids in with what they know. They also work on a plan to get the basement up and running for the big move in day on the 27th, while he's got most of his own stuff coming with him they still want to make sure it's all set up.
Clare, Audra, and Helen when she arrives will go and get some simple stuff for the basement bedroom. The curtain divider as well as a nightstand and some other things to make the space more homey.
"We all know mom's just been wanting to get her hands on a new project since you finished the guest room finally." Drew comments with a laugh.
"That's true. Maybe we'll get a whole basement apartment out of this! Could be fun." Adam joins in with a laugh, shrugging his shoulders.
"Please, then we'd never get to see you kids. You barely come up from the basement as is." Omar shrugs his shoulders as he pulls out his phone to check his work schedule to see when he can make time to help get the basement in working order too.
"Though it might be nice to have the space down there available with a door and everything." Audra thinks aloud with a nod of her head, and everyone can already tell that she's picturing just what she would do with the basement space if they could fix it all up.
"Well, we'd need to get some real workers. As much as I trust us with simple stuff, like putting that bookshelf together in Clare's room, I think putting a whole door frame is not what the Torres family is made for." Adam adds after a moment, hopefully not bursting his mother's bubble of happiness at the thought of having a new space.
"Well, what about the Martin's?" Clare suggests. "I mean, if you wanted to do the basement up and actually have it done, Jake's in Drew's grade and they used to have this cabin up by our summer cabin. I think his dad's in construction or architecture or something?" Clare explains, shrugging her shoulders.
"It's something to think about." Audra nods her head, mentally noting down the name in her mind to do research on when they're actually in a planning phase if they decide to go through with this.
"Alright, so what are we doing for dinner? I dunno about you guys, but all this talk about moving things around has got me hungry." Drew comments after a few quiet moments.
Adam turns to look at his brother and rolls his eyes, "When are you not hungry?"
"Uh, the same question could be asked for both of you." Clare retorts with a giggle to both brothers, shaking her head.
The following morning when Clare wakes up her mother's already at the house and talking with Audra and Omar. She gets downstairs to have breakfast and spots Helen sitting at the kitchen table with the other adults and it takes her aback in shock.
"Mom? I thought you were going to call when your flight got in." Clare says, wiping at her eyes as she yawns.
"I thought it would be better to surprise you, Clarebear." Helen stands up and walks over to greet Clare with a hug and kiss on the cheek. It's a bit awkward on Clare's end, as she doesn't quite know how to hug her mom back and she's still half asleep but she's happy to see her. "Nana and Pop send their love, and some Christmas presents, I've got them back at the hotel."
"Hotel? How long have you been here already?" Clare asks, blinking as she looks around the room to see the nearest clock. "Did I sleep in late or something?" Then, worriedly, she adds. "You haven't…told Nana and Pop…right?"
"No, sweetheart, of course I haven't." Helen assures her daughter, nodding her head. "I got in last night, I needed to meet with my lawyer early this morning to discuss something. You didn't sleep late, I'm still pretty ahead of schedule."
Clare nods her head, "Okay." Though it manages to come out a bit worried with her tone, unsure. "I'm going to make myself some tea to wake myself up." Clare pulls herself out of her mother's hands and walks across to the kitchen and turns on the kettle to make herself a cup of tea. "Does anybody need a refill or something while I'm making a cup for myself?"
"No thank you, Clare." Audra says, taking a sip of her own mug and Omar shakes his head. Clare's mom takes her seat back at the table again and holds a to-go cup in her hands as well.
Clare stays in the kitchen while she listens to the adults talk. They're catching up about everything that's happened in their lives since Helen's been out of town for the past few weeks, about Clare's schoolwork and Helen's divorce and then simple things like work in general.
It's definitely weird to see the three of them interacting, but it's not as awkward as she'd expected it to feel for her to observe. Clare had finally begun to feel at home in the Torres home and now this puts her feelings of being at home on edge, a questioning. But she knows that her mother is going back to her hometown after the holiday is over and after she's gotten whatever business with her lawyer out of the way.
It just makes her think how much, of everything, that she misses Darcy. Even if she and Darcy had never had the closest relationship-she couldn't compare her and her older sister to the relationship she witnessed now daily between the Torres brothers-they were still somewhat close, and having Darcy around during the holidays, this holiday in particular would be nice. She'd never gotten an answer about a video chat, but was hoping one day soon that Darcy's next email would come and they would be able to do that. Maybe, if luck would have it, it could even happen while her mother was in town. She could, should, write another follow up to Darcy now that Helen is here.
Clare just has to get through a few days with her mother being around and having both Audra and Helen hovering over her. She can do that. Of course the comment about seeing her lawyer first thing in the morning is stuck in her head, but she's sure they'll get to talk about that. They'll talk about all of that, and all the other awkward things that they'd been gracefully glossing over on the phone calls they'd been having the past few weeks.
AN: Thanks so much for reading, I hope you're enjoying the story so far! I'm looking forward to continuing my work on the story and getting into everything else I have planned.