A/N: So… I had it in my head to write a Quil/Claire fanfic. I'm not sure if I want to write this, so it would be terribly helpful if you'd review and tell me if it's worth the effort. :) I have ideas, just not sure if it's worth writing 'em out.
Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any recognizable characters. :-( PLEASE DON'T SUE ME!
Chapter 1
Claire POV
What I remembered when I woke up: icy roads, the windshield wipers on Quil's old truck going as fast they'll go, a pair of headlights, squealing tires (theirs) and brake pedal pushed to the floor (mine.)
What they told me when I woke up: A minivan lost control on the slippery roads and hit me on the driver's side when I—they assumed—didn't notice in time to hit the brakes or swerve.
What they told me, and what I could feel or see for myself: A little banged up (them,) three broken or bruised ribs, a minor concussion, and a broken leg (me.) And one totaled pick-up truck.
It could have been worse.
"Hey," Quil greeted quietly from the chair next to my hospital bed when I first opened my eyes. He dropped what he'd been holding, a news magazine from the looks of it, though I doubt he'd really been reading it, and leaned toward me, on my bedside table and leaned forward in his seat.
Fourteen years of knowing Quil Ateara and he still takes my breath away every time. It doesn't matter that I've been steadfastly trying not to think of him in those terms for the past couple years. It doesn't matter that I know he's keeping secrets from me—I stopped asking him about it a long time ago, anyhow. Every time I look at him it's like having the wind knocked out of me. Especially when he looks at me like he was when I opened my eyes that first time in the hospital after the accident: worried, terrified, like he wanted to hold me and never let go.
It's funny how life works out sometimes, though, isn't it?
"Hey," I whispered back. I said the first thing that came to mind then. "I'm really sorry about the truck."
Before the sentence was fully out of my mouth he was shaking his head, a sad smile playing across his lips. "Don't be." He reached out a tentative hand and, when I didn't pull back, laid it on my cheek. "What you should be apologizing for is nearly taking yourself away from me." His eyes tightened before he added, trying to lighten the mood, "Besides, I'd been thinking I needed a new truck anyway."
I smiled despite myself. "Sorry," I whispered again. "Is anyone else here?"
He nodded, sitting back in his chair again. "Sam and Emily came right away. They notified them when you got hit, and Sam called me. Leah and Seth stopped in for awhile, but they couldn't stay. Emily said your mom called. They're catching the next flight out." Quil said all this like he'd rehearsed it. Probably what he'd been focusing on this entire time so he wouldn't have to focus on where we were.
The official story is that I live with my aunt, Emily, her husband, Sam, and my cousin Brooke. My dad got a job offer in Sacramento when I was ten, and that's where my parents and sister live now. I'd be there, too, except that I threw such a fit about moving that they finally agreed to let me live with my aunt—my mother's younger sister—at least until I graduated high school, anyway.
That's what we told my parents, at least. And, yeah, I have a room at the Uley's, and enough clothes there so that no one gets suspicious when my family comes up to visit. I spend the night there sometimes, especially now that Brooke's a little older and more of a friend than a relative, but most of the time, I'm at Quil's.
I don't think I even need to get into how awkward that can get.
Though, I guess it was worse when Embry was still living there. I lived with them both until I was thirteen, when Embry moved in with his girlfriend—now fiancée—Jen. Or maybe it was better then, I don't know. At any rate, Quil had been leaving a key for me since the time I forgot my house key and had run over to his house so I wouldn't be stuck out on the porch until my mom got home from whatever errand she'd been running—because, naturally, I'd forgotten to tell her that morning that I only had a half-day of school, so she wasn't home to meet me. Of course, his grandfather had still been alive then, so there would have always been someone home to let me in, key or no.
So, yeah, that's why, on the first day of winter break, I was driving to the store in Quil's old beat-up pick-up truck, which I borrowed during the day sometimes, when my brakes failed and some poor lady in a minivan skidded on a patch of ice. And why Quil was the first person my uncle Sam called when he found out I'd been in a bad accident. To add insult to injury, I never did get to have the ice cream I was driving to the store to buy in the first place.
I told Quil that last part just to hear him laugh, though. And to get him to stop thinking what I know he had to have been thinking then: that it was his fault I couldn't stop in time. That he should have checked to make sure his brakes were working properly—I heard him muttering later, when I'm sure he thought I couldn't hear him, that they'd been sticking recently. Like that was the real problem. That he could've prevented the whole thing by getting off his lazy ass and going for me. He probably even thought up a whole list of things that he "needed" from the store that he could have gotten so he could pick up a carton of double fudge for me on the way.
What I didn't tell any of them: The brakes worked fine—for awhile, anyway. They worked long enough to get me out of La Push and through a couple stop lights. That maybe, if I hadn't stopped for that yellow light and just gone through, there might have been enough brake fluid that hadn't leaked out yet to save me from getting hit—or at least that she would've hit the hood of the car or something, and not gotten as far as my door. That "sticking brakes" hadn't been my problem.
What I didn't know yet for sure, but could easily guess: My car "accident" wasn't really an accident; if the minivan hadn't hit me, I would've ended up hitting something else.
It could have been a lot worse. It was meant to have been a lot worse.
A/N: And… yeah. Review? Tell me it doesn't suck? If it does, lie to me? Lol.