Aurora was going to kill them. Aurora Matthews, the perfect prom queen princess, was going to snap and kill their soulmate. So, Clover would just have to be sneaky.

-

Clover had never really fit in. Or maybe they just fit in too well, so well they just faded into the background. Either way, they never had many friends. Not when they were called Georgia and lived to be the perfect granddaughter, and especially not now that they lived alone at sixteen and the lease was under the name "Clover Addison Copeland."

They did, however, have one friend. One person who was always there for them. Aurora Matthews. Aurora (or Rory, as Clover called them) was like a dream. Sometimes Clover wondered if she was real, and not just a manifestation of trauma and/or taking way too many drugs way too young.

Aurora was the sun to Clover's moon.

She was a lively blonde who was always dressed up and a pageant queen. However, she was never cocky about it. If anything, she was insecure. Something her parents had never taken into consideration was that maybe forcing a young girl in front of a camera all day had some effect on her self-esteem.

Clover was apathetic with long black hair that they never as the energy to take care of. Their clothes were always oversized and Rory wasn't sure if it was just their style or if they were just short. Either way, most of their clothes were from thrift stores, as being an emancipated sixteen-year-old student made it difficult to earn money.

A therapist once told Clover that some people were just more vulnerable to addiction than others. They always hated that word, because it was used so often to describe them, and always with pity. The therapist said that genetics played a role (which they wouldn't know a lot about, because their parents left before Clover could talk), but that mental illness and trauma were also an 'important factor'. The therapist looked at them with pity as well. Clover never really liked therapists.

In a small town like Felicity Valley, everyone knew everyone, for better or for worse. This meant that if Clover was ever looking for anything, they knew just who to ask. For Clover, that was a guy named Nathan.

Everyone knew what Nate was involved in, so when Clover approached him one day and asked if they could meet up somewhere, there were no misconceptions about what they were going to ask for. In all fairness, he did warn her, that this might not be a path they wanted to take, but Clover insisted. He didn't ask where they got the money from, and Clover walked away with a decent supply of pills.

Now, they knew from the start that Rory wouldn't be happy about this, but they needed something to stop them from feeling or thinking or being themselves for a while. And as mentioned before, Clover did not like therapists.

Aurora was the type of girl that you made art for. The type of girl that you wrote songs and novels and poetry for. The type of girl most people could only dream of. But she was here, and she was real and she was Clover's and they couldn't have been happier.

Of course, Clover had to go and ruin it. They tried to get clean for Aurora, they really did, but nothing could ever just work out for Clover Copeland.

Withdrawal is a bitch, so every time they tried to quit, it would be followed by so much mental and physical pain that they'd end up taking a few more pills than they were meant to because they made everything feel quiet.

When their visits with Nate became more frequent, he warned them again. But Clover had never done anything good for themselves, and they weren't about to start now, so they ignored all of the warning signs.

Clover knew that Aurora knew. She started to look at them differently, more suspicious, more analytical than usual and it broke Clover's heart. But, as Aurora had been taught, she just shut up and sat there.

They knew it must be bad when Aurora confronted them about it in the least confrontational way possible. It was just a conversation of "if anything is bothering you, you know you can talk to me about it" and Clover nodded along, knowing that they would rather die than talk to Aurora about it because what if she realised that she should be with someone capable of just coping with being themselves?

Of course, Clover had to take it further. They wrote a note, and even though they weren't sure if it was a love note or a suicide note, but it was addressed to Aurora either way. It was written by a shaky hand in near-illegible writing, but whatever it was, it included many apologies for just about everything a person could be apologetic over.

After staying sober enough to pour their heart into a letter like they were an 18th-century aristocrat, Clover turned to the same familiar vice they'd been using for months. They'd met with Nate the day before and he said that they should probably think about stopping, which Clover thought was stupid because why would you tell a paying customer to stop buying from you?

Clover decided they'd been sober for too long because the familiar cravings came back, so they just took everything they could find in their apartment until they couldn't feel anything anymore. It took a few minutes for them to realise that maybe their body going completely numb wasn't the best thing. They felt awareness slipping away from them as they heard the door to their apartment opening, and they used what was left of their consciousness to pray that was Rory and not some random burglar.

They woke up in a hospital bed. Aurora was next to them, sitting in one of those flimsy plastic chairs. "Rory?" They hated how raspy their voice sounded. "Hey. You know, you still look great in a hospital gown." Aurora was smiling, but her ocean blue eyes were clouded with concern. "How are you feeling?" Clover gave a small, insincere smile. "Shit."
"Makes sense. What do you remember?"
"I took a lot of pills and then I blacked out."
"Basically. You're in withdrawal now, Clo."
"Fun."
"Very."

Clover knew that they'd make promises they couldn't keep. Aurora knew that they couldn't expect too much. But they'd be alright. They'd find a way through it.

a/n: clover and aurora will probably not be alright tune in for another episode of "bee can't deal with her problems so she writes angst instead"