A/N:
I do not own Treasure Planet. Only Cali...and other characters not from T.P. listed randomly in this lovely P.O.S. of a fanfic. This is my first fanfic ever. I except critisism under the condition that you're not completely rude about it. I already know it's a P.O.S. I don't need you to tell me the same thing paraphrased. XD
Anyhoo, this is just explaining how Jim and Cali met...basically...I guess...whatever just read: P
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"Mr. Hawkins!" shouted Mr. Landers, "Could you please tell the class what is so interesting outside?" he asked sternly.
"Uh, nothing sir!" said Jim respectfully, redirecting his attention from the window to the professor, "Forgive me sir, it won't happen again."
"Be sure that it doesn't." said Mr. Landers, continuing with some pointless lesson.
It was the middle of the first semester of his 3rd year at the Interstellar Academy and poor Jim could barely pay attention in any of his classes. He was too distracted from the event of the night before. It was like there was a broken record in his head, repeating over and over... "Sorry, but you're just not my type...I'm looking for someone with a little more – well more..." and it wouldn't shut up. The whole thing was starting to depress him. He had already told his friends about it and of course, like most friends would, they tried to cheer him up… but nothing seemed to work. After school they had to practically drag him to the student lounge. Instead of joining in on the latest rumor of the week or one of their games, when they reached the lounge, Jim just sat at the corner of a table near a window with his right arm leaning on the table and his head resting in his hand. The student lounge was usually empty, so it made a pretty good after-school-hang-out-spot for the guys. "The guys" consisted of Jim and about 15-20 of his friends, humans and aliens alike. If the solar-surfing-park was closed (which it usually was on weekdays) and there wasn't much else going on, they'd all head over to the lounge and play a couple card games, a game or two of arm wrestling, catch up on the latest news around the Academy, and order dinner from their favorite restaurant, The Solar Jazz Cafe'. Jim wasn't much in the mood for any of it, and his friends understood. They'd all had a bad experience with a girl before. Jim was a bit more distracted by a girl today than usual. Out of all the 5 girls he had asked out so far, 3 denied him, and the others only lasted about 2 weeks each. But when denied, he had never heard this excuse before, "...I only go for attractive guys."
'Am I not attractive?' he thought. 'Do other girls think that? Oh crap... if they didn't I bet they do now; she probably told all her friends about me and her friends have probably told more girls and by now the word has spread that Jim Hawkins isn't date material and no girl will ever want to go out with me again and I'll probably end up dying alone!! ...Okay I am totally exaggerating here, but still! Jeez, the way I can scare myself...'
All the while Jim was having his freak out moment in his head, he was still aware of everything going on around him. It was 'Pizza Wednesday'. Matt and Zach were having an arm wrestling contest, (a couple of the guys placed bets on who'd win), about 8 of the others were playing poker, and the rest were either making up some new contest to occupy themselves until dinner arrived or they were catching up with the latest gossip around them, and the latest was Jim's rough night. Just then, there was a knock at the door. Noticing Jake walking over to answer it, Jim lazily watched to see who it was (everyone was getting hungry so pretty much the whole room's attention was on the door). As Jake opened the door he and the others saw a person in a delivery uniform, carrying a stack of 7 pizza boxes. The face was hidden behind the enormous stack so no one was sure if it was a guy or a girl, until a voice came:
"Umm, a little help...please? These are kinda startin' to burn!" she said quickly.
"Yeah, hang on a sec." said Jake while grabbing 3 boxes off the top of the stack.
As soon as he grabbed them he knew what she was talking about. He hurriedly walked over to closest table and set them down.
"Damn, these are hot! Hey someone get the rest!" he called out to the room.
Half of the guys saw that Alex was already on it and they started over to the table where the first 3 pizzas had been set. Alex removed the other 4 boxes from the delivery girl and quickly went to a table that wasn't so crowded with teenage guys with big appetites. The delivery girl's face was now revealed and Jim noticed that she was pretty cute. She was dressed in a navy blue delivery uniform; her red hair pulled back into a pony-tail that hung out the back of her cap. Even in a delivery uniform it was obvious this girl was attractive. But this only made Jim start to think again.
'Whoa! Check her out! Oh, but wait a sec...the girl from last night was a babe too, and look how that ended up. Not to mention my 2 denials before her. Why should this girl be any different? Maybe I should stay away from cute girls for a while...'
With that Jim turned his head, still leaning on his arm, to the window and watched the sun slowly start to set. Because his head was turned he didn't noticed a few guys go up to the girl.
"So you're our new delivery girl, huh?" asked Luke.
"Yeah, I guess so," said the girl.
"What happened to Marty?" said Bobby.
"He got a promotion and I got stuck with his old job. Name's Cali."
"I'm Luke. This is Bobby and Caden" he said pointing to the guys beside him.
He put a hand on her back and gently pushed her a few steps more into the room.
"And these are the guys!!" as Luke said this aloud, everyone in the room turned their attention to the front, even Jim. "Guys this is Cali, our new delivery girl!"
"CALIII!!!!" the room cheered as majority of the guys raised their pizzas to her.
This was the usual welcome 'The Rowdy Crowd' gave to new comers and people they knew. It was their thing: to treat others with respect and make them feel at home. Though what else would you expect from people via the Interstellar Academy? Cali had to laugh when she saw alot of the guys shout her name with a mouth full of pizza. Jim wasn't even in the mood to give Cali a warm welcome. He figured it'd just be a waste of time if he didn't even have a shot with her. When all of the other guys shouted her name, Jim just refocused his attention to the sunset. Cali (of course) noticed this. Alex had come up to her and given her a welcoming hand shake while the others went back to eating and joking around. She returned the handshake with a smile then refocused her attention to Jim. Curious, she leaned over to Alex an asked softly, motioning her head toward Jim:
"What's wrong with that guy?"
"Who? Jim? Oh don't worry about him. He's just moping over some girl."
"What happened? He get dumped?"
"Denied. The girl basically said he wasn't attractive."
"Oooh, harsh much." said Cali, starting to feel sorry for the young man who across the room.
"Tell me about it. But he'll get over it by the weekend tops."
"Wait…so this has happened before?"
He shrugged, "Once or twice. Plus, I'm his best friend; I'm supposed to know these things, right?"
Cali shrugged and smiled.
"Well, don't be a stranger." Alex gave her the money for the pizzas plus a tip.
Cali thanked him, but instead of walking out the door, she found herself walking towards Jim. One look at him and she could tell he wasn't the sort of guy that deserved to be treated like that; she'd taught herself to know the difference. As she came closer to Jim, she started thinking of what she could say or do to make him feel just a bit better. Jim heard someone come closer to him but wasn't sure who it was. Thinking it was one of his friends he kept his gaze at the sunset. Cali stopped at the end of the table and spoke up to get his attention.
"Hey." she said lightly.
Jim was surprised to hear a girl's voice instead of a guy's. He looked at the reflection in the window and saw a red headed girl with a blue cap standing behind him. He sped his body around to get a better look. He noticed it was the delivery girl. Closer up, Jim was able to see her emerald green eyes, and it occurred to him that he would classify her more as beautiful than just plain cute. Still...there was a good chance that she'd be one of the shallow ones. Jim's enthusiasm lowered after just half a second of this thought, but not wanting to come off as rude, he returned the greeting:
"Hey..." he said, lowering his gaze to this table.
"I, uh, heard you had a rough day yesterday...I'm sorry..." she tried to sound as sincere as possible and sat down across from him.
"Great, it's already spreading..." he muttered, his gaze still at the table.
"Huh?"
"(sigh) nothing...just thinking out loud…"
Cali chuckled slightly but saw on Jim's expression that it wasn't helping.
"Uh..hey, don't let what that girl said mess with ya. I mean, what does she know, right?"
"(another sigh) ...whatever.." said Jim, as if her words meant nothing.
Feeling like this was going no where, Cali decided it was time to get back to work.
"Well, I hope your day gets better."
She stood up from the table and turned to leave, but she didn't want to leave without accomplishing anything. She wanted to give him something...but what? Suddenly it dawned on her of what could be just the thing to lift his spirits. She thought that a guy like that deserved one anyway. She turned around and saw that Jim had not changed his position. She took a step closer, bent down next to him, and kissed him on the cheek. With that she headed for the door. Well this perked Jim up! He lifted his head in slight shock and looked in the direction Cali was walking. Maybe his accusations about her were wrong. Maybe she was different than the others. Jim called after her to stop her from leaving. He wasn't sure what he was going to say, but he at least wanted an explanation, not that he was complaining.
"Hey! Wait a sec!" he called running up to her. He was able to stop her at the door, "What was that for?"
"You looked like you needed some luck," she said simply, then winked, "See ya around."
As the door closed behind her, Jim was left standing there and all he could mutter out was:
"Bye..."
When Jim finally turned around he saw that everyone was staring at him. Then an outbreak of laughter and roots and cheers for him came about. A bunch of the guys came up to him and punched him in the arm, hit him on the back, and gave him high fives. Needless to say Jim's day (and week for that matter) brightened up.
